


Every Rhyme Without Reason

by kalliel



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Case Fic, Casual Intimacy, Episode: s01e12 Faith, Fae & Fairies, Grief/Mourning, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt Sam Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Non-Sexual Intimacy, POV Sam Winchester, Season/Series 01, Sexual Fantasy, Touchy-Feely, drug use not as prescribed, insinuations of suicide/suicidal ideation, non-established relationship, where is this motel even???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-05
Updated: 2016-11-05
Packaged: 2018-08-29 06:24:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 44,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8478715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalliel/pseuds/kalliel
Summary: Still shaky from the events of 1x12 "Faith," Sam and Dean take one too many cases in quick succession and find themselves stranded, with Dean injured and Sam struggling to stand his ground against the insanities of grief, exhaustion, and what seems increasingly like the intractable oblivion of hunting. When a hunter turns up dead at their motel--because of course one does--they find themselves at an uncomfortable crossroads: Just trying to survive the job itself is probably going to kill them before their monster can. They'll need each other more than ever, but need is a complicated thing; and Sam and Dean are either the best thing for each other or the very worst. It's time to find out which.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [ARTWORK!](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/239677) by sketchydean. 



> The first half of this was graciously alpha-read by BRATFARRAR, in spite of all the angst. <3 It was beta-read by FROZEN_DELIGHT and ONLYTHEFIREBORN, both of whose assistance and feedback has been invaluable! All remaining deficiencies are mine.

_Dedicated to BV, 1961-2016_

* * *

It's 3AM and there’s a possum under the bed.

“What’re you doing?” Dean asks. "And why are you waving your ass in the air?"

“Checking under the bed,” Sam answers simply. 

“For monsters?”

“For--” Sam pokes it with his knife. ”God, that’s disgusting.”

“Full condoms?” Dean suggests.

Sam just gestures. It’s cartoonish, the way it’s lying rigid on its back, tiny claws curled so tight you could probably hang it from them. Its tail is curled like a noose beside it. “Explains why they were keeping this room so goddamn cold, I guess.”

“I mean, yeah, if you wanna guess wrong,” says Dean. “I’m all for the lazy man’s solution, but that’s ridiculous, Sam. Just get a shovel and dump the fucking thing.”

“ _I’m_ not touching it.” Sam jumps up and marches to the thermostat. “And we’re not gonna let it defrost.”

Dean snorts. “Dude, you are so--” His breath hitches. “I don’t even know what I wanna say to you right now.”

“Say whatever you want. It’s all lumpy. I don’t even think we could pull it out in one piece, unless we moved the bed.”

Sam spins around to face Dean. 

“Wait, wanna help me move the bed?”

“Hell no,” is Dean’s instant reply. 

It sounds desperately tired, and the shaky timbre of it is what finally jars Sam from his marsupial obsession.

They’re in Idaho, with Twin Falls on all the highway signs. Beyond that, Sam’s not sure where they are anymore. They’re sixty miles and forty minutes out from the last job, and his mind's still rushing--still stupid with the heat of the moment. The whole thing had resembled bullfighting more than Sam cares to recount, though of course the memory floods him anyway: A bax’aan--Gros Ventre water monster with bovine horns--and them with a bucket of dead frogs, waiting for it to show, standing in a river as the ice floes passed. 

In the thick of it, Dean had logged some time underwater, unable to stand. Sam’s not entirely sure why--at the time, the only thing that mattered was pulling him back up. But from what Sam has pieced together, it was penance for twisting out of the way of the bax’aan’s horns, long and lowered. Something to do with his knee. Sixty miles out and adrenaline a wistful ghost, it’s all coming back on Dean, that much is obvious. He’s still standing, but he doesn’t look happy about it. Doesn’t look like he’ll be standing much longer.

Sam's hands are still shaking, his brain a chemical streak where thought should be.

_stop thinking about the possum_

It burns, _go go go_ , fight flight fight fight fight. Dean shouldn't have stopped driving; Sam is too far from ready to stop--it's too soon, in too much nowhere. Sam feels like he’s gonna keep going for hours, muscles twisting quick revolutions under his skin. And it’s all he can think about, the tight pain of his cold-shocked calves as he’s standing in that water, the bucket of frogs, the warmth of the bax’aan’s blood as he tore a knife through its throat. This possum under the bed.

It makes the universe seem easy: Possum, blood, bucket of frogs. Going, going. Nothing more.

_Go go go_

“I can ask for a new room, you know.”

“No,” Sam objects quickly. Too quickly for sanity--but it’s fight or flight, it's Sam versus possum, and sometimes the best fight is _stand your fucking ground_ \--but before Dean can respond Sam adds, “You know us. It can only go downhill, right? Dodge the possum, end up with like, a dead moose in the bed or something.”

Which only sounds crazier, but Dean seems to accept this as a possibility, or doesn’t care. He mutters something about necrophilia and hunger and “whatever’s still open” and then the motel door’s shut and Dean’s on the other side of it, out in the world, and Sam’s hands are still shaking. His elbows tingle.

He does some jumping jacks. 

Jogs the three steps to the bathroom and splashes his face, water old and full of pipe iron and rust.

 

\--

 

By the time he has the shower running clean, steam billowing out, Sam feels half-normal and everything hurts. Throat raw, eyes sandy, skin alive to the beat of the water. He ruffles aggressively at his hair and scrubs the river silt from between his toes, his ass cheeks, his balls. It’s everywhere. 

Under the spray, the bax'aan comes alive again. It's not a particularly visual memory--though it should be, given what a bax'aan is. Of all the things Sam's hunted, it looks the most like a monster; he's not sure if that makes it better or worse than the ones that look like women, or kids. Or like his mother--or like Dean. Dean is mostly all Sam remembers from tonight, anyway. The bax'aan--if the legends are true--has an eye in every follicle. It has turtles for lice. Yet what Sam remembers most is his brother, knife in hand; and then his brother under water, and the bax'aan galloping past.

Sam remembers splashing gawkily forward, ice pain shooting up the back of his knees as the muscles twisted like gargoyles, shocked by the movement and temperature. He remembers trying to smell blood, Dean's blood, to see it. But it's all black slush, black reeds and overwintered sticks. It's all ripples. It's not even really a river, though Sam keeps calling it that. It's a black plane of soppy wetland, ice choked and miserable. The point is--not a great place for a swim. And never more than three or four feet deep. Dean should be able to stand.

Maybe it gored him, Sam thinks. Maybe Dean couldn't get out of the way. He's underwater right now, bleeding out as the river fills him. Maybe--

_Dean in a pool of basement water, taser beside him, heartbeat gone_

It's too soon to lose him like that again. _It's too--_

Sam's hands are too numb to tell mud from fabric or flesh from wood, but whatever he grabs at grabs back, and it's Dean--Dean who comes up with a sucking pop, profuse hacking. Dean, Dean, Dean.

Dean keeps trying to drown himself, scrambling back towards the water at the same time Sam's trying to find any holes that shouldn't be there. Gaping saw-like wounds. That sort of thing. It's harder than it sounds, in a river, in the mud, in stormy darkness. Sam can't feel his hands. Can't feel Dean under them. Dean keeps trying to drown himself, and Sam keeps shouting, Don't.

It's mostly aural after that, sound and numbness. Dean's shouting back, coughing and shouting and choking. SAM YOU MOTHERFUCKER DON'T is his most articulate offering, and it rings in Sam's head, around and around. 

It's how Sam knows something's wrong, probably. For someone who basically doesn't make sense ninety percent of the time, on a hunt Dean's instructions are always crystal. _We need the frogs to lure him out. Then we slash its throat with this knife,_ if Dean doesn't know you. _Sam, bring the-- And yeah, with the thing_ if he does. But right now, Dean's just swearing at him, and they're both swallowing too much water, too busy hacking it back up to clarify. 

Eventually Sam realizes Dean's trying to get the knife back. It's in the riverbed somewhere, being buried by silt too quickly. They need the knife. They need the knife so they can get the--kill the--with the thing. 

Somehow, Dean's fingers find the knife. But he doesn't stand, just swallows more water and shoves it toward Sam's hands. Sam would have taken the handoff more gracefully, were Dean not thrusting it at him blade first. _Sam fucking take it_ Dean shouts.

When Sam finally takes the knife, wrenching it from Dean's grasp, his fingers feel too numb, too disembodied to close around the handle. He feels the force of the bax'aan bearing down on them, on their big-ass knife, like a detonation dispersed through his elbows, out along every nerve in his body. The bax'aan twists abruptly, away from the knife, and the blood arcs over Sam's face. The warmth of all that blood returns Sam's hands to his brain, lets him finish the job. Sam thrusts hard, pulls it through the artery. And again. Again, again. 

He watches the bax'aan kick weakly, lungs collapsing, trachea shuddering. He watches as it turns from monster to corpse. 

The blood feels warm and good on his hands. For a second, it feels like a win.

Then Dean's body against him goes slack, and Dean slips under. This time he's not going for any knife. Dean slumps and slips away.

Dean's conscious again by the time Sam pulls him up, gasping and rigid with pain. He'd only been out a few seconds, but Sam knows something's wrong. Dean's in pain, a fuckton of it. Something about Dean's leg, his knee, is all Sam can decipher. Something about getting out of the way. But they make it out of the river somehow, Sam dragging, Dean being dragged. 

Watch where you're poking that, Dean says of the knife Sam won't, can't, relinquish. 

Learned that from the master, Sam wheezes as he heaves Dean onto the bank. Sam tries to take more of Dean's weight; Dean gives him all of it, and they fall to the ground. Sam tries again, and somehow, they walk. They make it back to the car. Sam's pretty sure the only reason the shock doesn't kill them is all that blood. It's hot. Urgent. And they need to get the fuck out of there. Dean slumps over the wheel and puts his heel to the floor, and doesn't let up. 

And now they're here, and it's 3AM, and there's a possum under the bed.

Sam emerges from his shower clean, sore, and sick to his stomach. There’s still blood in his cuticles. 

Dean’s not back yet.

It's all a fucking mess.

 

\--

 

There’s still a possum under the bed.

Honestly, Sam’s not sure if he feels stupider for keeping it, or because even now, off the adrenaline high and well into the crash, he’s still not sure if he cares. 

Sam draws the line, however, at sleeping over it. That smacks too much of some ritual he wants no part of.

He checks the thermostat again, brushes his teeth, slides his weapons into bed, and tumbles in after them. Opens his laptop, and waits for Dean.

And waits.

And waits.

 

\--

 

Sam watches the time tick up on his laptop, minute by minute, until he realizes nearly half an hour’s swept by and that’s all he’s done, is watch--and god, it’s hard to act like a normal human being after a hunt. It all just screams in his head, sense and sound and all absence of color. It doesn't let him go; none of it ever does. 

He doesn't remember it feeling like this when he was a kid. Back then, it had all felt pointless. Now it feels all too incredibly sharp.

Sam poises his hands to type, actually do something, and doesn’t know why he even has his laptop out.

So instead he turns out the light and thinks he’ll sleep; but he won’t. His body is tired beyond sleep and Dean’s not back yet and he knows there’s only nightmares waiting for him, anyway. Jess and Mary and--a recent bonus--reapers. (Dean’s still the only one of them who’s actually seen a reaper, so of course in Sam’s dreams he imagines the worst. He wonders if now, his reapers will look like bog bulls, with turtles for lice.)

Sam sits in the dark with the blue glow of his laptop for company, unmoving and unthinking, until he hears a scratch at the window.

Maybe.

It’s frosted over with translucent, icy geometries--on the inside, Sam realizes. Outside there’s just blackness, the suggestion of movement. A whorl of snow or a ghost. If it were Dean he’d have heard the Impala rumble up, crack ice as she slid over it.

Sam hears metal creaking. Suddenly, he feels like a swimming pool, or a monument--lit and shining blue in the dark. He puts his screen to sleep, and the room goes safely dark.

There it is again--a whisper against the window.

Then there’s a thunk against the door, the sloppy jangle of keys, and there’s Dean, finally.

Dean switches on the light.

“Where’s the car?” Sam asks, reflex flooding back in a jumbled rush. Laptop balanced on his knees, Sam reaches backward with his far hand until he touches gunmetal under his pillow. Because if Dean didn’t see the thing, or get jumped by the thing, then there’s a chance he _is_ the thing. There’s a thing, or there was--at the window. There was. 

There _is._

And Sam hadn't heard the car drive up.

Red-cheeked and windswept, his nose dripping, Dean doesn’t exactly look like a denizen of the night; he’s got an armful of plastic bags that smell like Chinese. But there’s verisimilitude for you, and precautions are precautions. 

Sam’s left hand clatters across the laptop’s keyboard as his right clicks the safety off.

“The car’s outside,” Dean says. His eyebrows knit warily. 

For an instant he jumps to meet Sam’s orange alert, everything held tighter, eyes scanning.

But he drops it just as quickly. 

And of course he does, because it’s just Sam and he’s just Dean and they’re not working, not even headed to a job; it’s just Sam and his brother and a cheap motel room and Sam needs to get the fuck over himself and calm the fuck down. 

Obviously.

“And what do you mean, ‘where’s the car?' She cheating on me?” Dean adds, with belated levity. “Were you planning to get her in bed with you or what?”

Dean groans as he pushes off from the doorframe.

Sam hadn’t noticed he’d been leaning, but Dean’s limp is evident even in the few steps he takes. He lobs the plastic bags at Sam’s head and collapses onto the bed. That is, the not-possum bed. Sam’s bed. Which is apparently now Dean’s bed.

Well, if there was something lurking outside, it certainly didn’t know advantage when it saw one. It could have picked Dean off in a hot second. 

Sam tries to shake the shudder from his breath and blinks the figment at the window back into his imagination. He stares at his brother instead.

Something about Dean’s knee, Sam remembers.

“So it’s bad, huh?” he asks, as he investigates of the bags. Maybe their contents will be the blessing that grounds him. He feels like he's losing his damn mind. 

_adrenaline adrenaline adrenaline_

Dean’s on his back now, one arm flung over his face. His fingers are bright red, newly acquainted with a temperature above zero.

His muffled response is: “Well, it don’t walk out. That’s for sure.”

Which isn’t that descriptive, but the dinner haul fills in a few blanks. There’s chow mein and egg rolls in one bag, but also beer and doughnuts; but also chili cheese fries, by now mucky and limp; but also Italian subs; but also what appear to be dolmas; but also tortilla chips; but also hash browns; and flat apple pies that look like the bastard children of an old chimichanga and a wad of napkins. A motley cornucopia. 

At least all this explains what took Dean so long.

“I can’t imagine lapping the whole town helped, no,” Sam allows. "You left, so I thought you might be okay."

"Disproven."

_Calm the fuck down, Sam. Calm it down._

Sam picks up one of the wilted pies. “I assume these are for you? ‘Cause I’m not eating this.”

Dean peeks out from under his arm. “Just gimme a beer.”

He makes a grasping motion at the edge of the comforter, like he wants to wrap himself in it, but his side of the bed remains primly and studiously tucked.

“Pressure in the shower is aces, if you want to warm up,” Sam offers.

Dean succeeds with the comforter and mumbles something from within. 

“Oh, come on," says Sam. "Now you’re just being pathetic. You’ve basically wrapped yourself in secondhand smoke.”

“And I ain’t coming out.”

“You should at least take something. Your knee’s gotta be the size of a bowling ball, after your international food tour.”

“It was one strip mall. The triumph of modern America,” Dean corrects, but he throws off the comforter in defeat. “Give ‘em over.”

“No beer, then,” Sam reminds him, popping the top off his own bottle. It’s slightly oily from the leaking Chinese.

Dean sits up and wipes a mysterious stickiness from his cheek, and casts an accusatory glare at the comforter. _Fucking disgusting_ , he mutters under his breath, then repeats, “Yeah, yeah. Give ‘em over.”

Sam leans over Dean and sets his beer on the bedside table. 

Whether propelled by fraternal generosity or pure post-hunt agitation, Sam’s not sure, but he shuffles toward the duffel, which is curled against the far wall under a wayward ironing board. 

Behind him, Dean struggles with his bootlaces. Sam hears him unzip his fly.

“And throw me some dry pants, will you? Goddamn snow. Goddamn--cow thing.”

Sam sighs. "You're kinda needy, you know that?"

By the time Sam locates their lone bottle of painkillers--miscellaneous leftovers from some hunt or another, one of Sam’s fake names printed on the scrip--Dean’s somehow managed to extract himself from one boot and one leg of his jeans. His offending leg is still entirely clothed. 

He looks ridiculous.

“Couldn’t reach the laces,” Dean explains.

“Well, brilliant solution to that one.” Sam arcs the pill bottle toward Dean, tosses the rest of the med kit to his feet.

As Sam unties Dean’s remaining boot--laces bloated and squelching water, now that the ice is melting--Dean leans to snag Sam’s beer from the nightstand. He drinks as he reads the med label.

“I hate this one,” Dean says.

“Fuck, you’re right,” Dean says, filling Sam’s silence. “No booze.”

He takes another swig. 

"Just one more sip," he promises.

Sam resists the urge to roll his eyes and keeps working at the laces. Dean mostly smells like leather and wet denim, but his romp in the comforter’s already done its damage, too. Cig smoke and industrial cleaner--though honestly, the two smells cohabitate so often Sam’s not sure they’re not one and the same.

“You smell like an old bed,” Sam says eventually, as he tugs at Dean’s boot, gently at first--a warning shot--and then harder.

“That's weird.” Dean sucks in a hard breath. “The cologne lady called it ‘Manly Hooker.’”

The boot comes free.

Dean peels down his second pant leg. 

“You want me to take a look?” Sam asks, gesturing at the med kit with a flick of his chin.

Dean shrugs. “Feast your eyes all you want, pervert. It looks like a knee; and gimme my pants.”

“That’s not a knee,” Sam objects, taking out the Ace wrap anyway. “I mean, that’s basically a hairy bread bowl. It’s _huge,_ , Dean--”

“One, that’s disgusting; There are hoagies in the room, Sam--care a little. Two, gimme my pants. Here, I’ll trade you.”

Dean tosses him the pill bottle, but he lets Sam pull a length of wrap.

Sam frowns. “Seriously? You want the beer that much, then fucking drink it; I don’t care. But you gotta take the pills.”

Dean shakes his head. “That stuff fucks me up. I don’t understand how they’re allowed to sell that to people.”

“It’s all we got. And I thought they worked just fine,” Sam says, as he inspects the label. He does his best to wrap Dean's knee one-handed. Clip it in place. "Yeah, these were great."

“Lucky you, then,” Dean says, poking at Sam's handiwork. 

“Well, I mean, do you enjoy nerve damage? ‘Cause that’s a shitton of swelling, dude. What kind of ‘fucked up’ are we talking here?”

Because Sam wants to shove the pills down Dean’s throat. Sue him if he’s tapped out on seeing Dean obviously in pain and obviously ignoring it--or trying to. Even if this is probably the moderately cloudy with scattered showers of shitstorms, Sam can’t handle it right now. Anything short of renal failure, and Dean’s taking the goddamn pills.

“Fucked up,” Dean elucidates. “I dunno. Vivid dreams; weird stuff.”

This response doesn’t help Sam’s patience, because he’s got the market cornered on vivid dreams and weird stuff. At least Dean’s nightmares don’t come true. At least they don't feel lived in, old hat, by the time they happen in earnest. Dean's not some kind of psychic freak. Dean's not the one who dreamed his girlfriend dead a hundred times but couldn't stop it. He's not the one who dreamed his mother, a ghost in a house. Dean's not the one who-- 

Sam sidesteps all of this. Just says, “Right, because you’re too honorable to pass up hi-def nipples.” 

Dean snorts, not a little bitterly. “Right.”

“Look, you need the sleep. Just take the pills and get some rest.”

Sam wants to point out that also, Dean’s being a baby, but instead he says, “I’m gonna try to track down a microwave for this stuff. Get you some ice for that.”

Dean looks around. Ironing board. Blocky TV. Garbage can. No microwave.

“Shitty motel,” he says.

“Home sweet home,” Sam agrees.

Either Dean knows Sam’s right, or he’s tired enough to give up the ghost, as it were, because he swallows them down with minimal further commentary. He does mutter something about Dr. Sam’s oh-so-expert medical opinion, but by that point Sam's stopped listening.

Sam's field trip outside doesn’t take long--microwave in the lobby, ice machine by the laundry. His newly hot noodles leave steam trails in cold air as he inspects their window on the return trip. There's nothing there, and no evidence that anything had been--nothing corporeal, anyway. But with new snow coming down, it’s hard to be one hundred percent. The remains of their own footprints look like healing pockmarks.

_Calm down, Sam._

Sam bats the snow from his hair and jacket when he gets back inside, kicks as much as he can off his boots. His fingers burn.

Dean’s already asleep. He’s thoughtfully stripped the possum bed of its pillows and stacked them under his knee. 

Of course this means Dean’s thoughtfully commandeered every pillow, leaving Sam none. But it doesn’t matter; sleep is no more likely now than it was an hour ago. Sam figures if he can get away with cheating sleep until he’s too dead on his feet to dream, that’s what he’s gonna do.

Which is not hypocrisy, Sam assures himself as he strips the blankets from the possum bed and lobs them over Dean. The sheets beneath are curiously mottled, but it’s cold enough Sam doesn’t think about it too hard. Just grabs his laptop off the bedside table and tries to embody something lithe as he climbs into bed beside his brother again. The mattress caves towards the center under Sam’s weight and Dean’s body comes with it, warm and heavy. Sam shivers.

Dean is dreaming, eyes twitching under closed lids. Probably something strange and vividly nightmarish, because that’s just who they are. Sam’s not sure anymore if there’s any recourse but to accept that; so he leaves Dean be and turns his attention to his computer screen, which glows cold and blue once more. 

He toggles his ISP, but there’s no WiFi. 

It’s going to be a long night, then.

Sam pulls up his email archive and types in _Jess._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bax'aan is a Gros Ventre water monster. This fic takes many bax'aan liberties, among others.


	2. Chapter 2

“Sam, why’re there cops outside?” Dean grumbles sleepily. He draws his pillow over his head. 

Every few seconds red light arcs through their window from the parking lot below. At least the sirens had stopped; somehow Dean had slept straight through those. They'd shown up around daybreak and hadn't bothered letting up for at least an hour. Sam sighs.

“I dunno, SWAT hasn’t called my personal number yet,” he replies.

“Well, if they do, remember I’m dead. Fuck.” 

“What?”

Dean resurfaces from beneath his pillow and throws it at the window. It arcs neatly over Sam’s laptop. “Gotta take a leak.”

“No, why are you dead?”

Dean winces as he slides his legs off the bed, massages his knee. “St. Louis? Your friend. Skinwalker--right, Becky, that’s her name. Mmm, Becky.”

“Oh, so not rawhead.”

“What would that have to do with SWAT? Fuck!” 

“Sorry for confusing your mortal perils.”

“Not you.” Dean draws in a shuddering breath. His leg doesn’t seem to take his weight, and he crumples. Tries to catch himself on the side of his bed and ends up with his ass on the floor anyway.

“We should really get that looked at,” says Sam.

“Yeah, well. Next time I blow my load getting my heart destroyed, I’ll make sure I take that into consideration,” Dean snaps. There's such heat to the remark, and unexpected bitterness, that Sam jumps to attention.

Dean must mistake it for a flinch, because he backpedals. “Insurance is maxed,” he clarifies. He's quieter now, like this is an addendum he’s not sure he wants Sam to hear.

Second time’s the charm. Dean moves weight into his right leg more carefully this time, hands wadded in the blankets as he pushes himself upright. His knee holds.

With one smooth jerk, he strips the blankets clean from Sam’s body and dumps them on the floor.

Sam yelps, and his toes curl at the sudden chill. 

“Asshole!” Sam shouts, as he drives over the side of the bed to retrieve the sheets.

Dean laughs, a muted cackle from the bathroom. 

A few minutes later, he emerges shaven, towel-tousled, and starving. Forget knees; forget nightmares. Just like that, they've moved on to the next adventure.

Almost.

Dean shoots a look at the possum bed, and chuckles. “I can’t believe you, Sam. Of all your strange-ass--”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“We can still ask for a switch, you know.”

“Well, now it’d just be weird.”

Dean shrugs. “Fair enough. Look, I’m gonna find that microwave and see about these pies,” he says, sifting through the plastic bags Sam had, at some point, tossed onto their ironing board.

“No, I can go,” Sam protests, because the way Dean’s moving suggests that he probably shouldn’t be. “I already know where it is.”

“This ain’t exactly the Overlook, Sam. I’m not gonna get lost.”

Sam frowns, but he knows a fruitless fight when he tastes one. “Microwave’s back at check-in; dunno if you saw it last night. Apparently some guests started microwaving the rats, so now they like to--you know. Keep tabs.”

Dean grimaces. “I’ll say it again: shitty motel.”

He pockets the two pies and slowly leans down to mess with his boots. He grimaces again and backslides solidly out of their new adventure and into the remnants of their last.

"Did you re-wrap?"

"Obviously."

“We have more of those meds," Sam reminds him. "Seemed to help last night."

Dean lights up at this, which means either he’s forgotten his tirade against their side effects, or the balance has shifted, and they now are lesser evils. Even for Dean, pain will out.

“How many we got?” he asks.

“Dunno, they’re down by you.”

Dean rummages, retrieves, and shakes. Then his light goes out, and he puts the bottle back. Then out again. Then back. Then into his pocket, unconsumed.

“So how many was that?” Sam asks.

“Look, I’m just gonna go to the microwave, try and stretch this out again,” Dean replies, slapping his leg. 

This suggests to Sam that the number, like their health insurance, is nearing the end of its usefulness. 

Before Sam can object, Dean adds, "Also, you look like a sno-cone.”

Sam pulls the blanket tighter around himself. “It’s _cold._ ”

 

\--

 

Of course, when Dean doesn’t come back, Sam decides that yes, it’s cold, but he’s probably even colder if it turns out Dean’s slipped to his death on the icy stairwell and Sam doesn’t at least try to recover the body.

“You know, before it freezes to the ground, and things get messy,” Sam adds, after he finds Dean downstairs, not dead, rubbernecking the police action downstairs. Sam cups his hands over his mouth and breathes out hard to warm them. 

“My cold, dead body appreciates that, Sam. Don’t wanna end up like your possum.”

Dean leans against him as he tries to crane his neck and get a better look at the crime scene. 

They’re standing at the edge of a police barrier set up around the room directly below theirs. There’s an ambulance, but it’s not going anywhere. No rush, clearly. The medical examiner just showed up, and Sam suspects Dean’s waiting for the body to come out. 

“They’re saying it was some kind of sex thing,” Dean puffs in disbelief, his exhalations warm against Sam’s neck. “How does that work?”

“Seriously, we’re out here rubbernecking because you’re an idiot? It’s like -40.”

“Please, 8 with wind chill, if that. How do you die from sex?”

“My god, you’re actually an idiot. Heart attack, stroke--”

“Sure, if you’re Sam Winchester shagging 90-year olds.”

“ _You’ve_ had a heart attack. Like two weeks ago, Dean.”

“Okay, but you realize the bedroom version of ‘I felt a spark’ is a line, right?”

“--succubi, thokolosi, encantados, lidercs--”

“Why do you just know those?”

“Do you know what the family business is? Or is this like, hypothermic amnesia because we’re still standing out here for no reason?”

“I’m just saying, I’ve had a lot of sex in a lot of places. Some of those places--ehhhh, selection was a little iffy. But I’ve never had sex with an empanada. Or an--”

“Encantado,” corrects Sam. “It’s uh, well. It’s a dolphin. Sort of. It--” 

“ _Fuck._ ” 

Dean caves into Sam, hard and sudden, and in spite of himself, Sam’s heart leaps.

“What’s wrong?”

But Dean’s just trying to lower himself under the police tape.

Dean wobbles as he rights himself on the other side of the barrier.

“Sam, we know this guy.”

 

\--

 

Apparently, they were roadtripping with this guy. College buddies--Bellingham to St. Louis. Or at least, that’s what Dean tells the detective. Sam’s never seen this guy in his life. The most familiar thing about him is the mottled bruising around his neck, and that’s nothing personal--just the job. It's obvious _Dean_ knows him--and just as obvious is Dean's easy slippage from "Dean" to "we," as though Sam had never been gone, had never lived his own, old, and other life. 

And honestly, that pisses him off. About eleven seconds into Dean's college boy routine Sam pulls out, leaving Dean to his own histrionic devices. "College buddies," his ass. The whole charade burns; and it's not that Dean's rendition of college life is offensive or inaccurate. The whole thing seems so stupid, though. The dead guy's thirty, easy; Dean could have picked literally any other costume. But no, they're college buddies. 

And maybe it shouldn't matter; it shouldn't bother Sam at all. But today it fucking does.

Maybe that's what it all was to Dean--Stanford was some weird college-themed acid trip of Sam's. Sam doesn't know and he knows he doesn't really care--not usually. He's never expected Dean to understand that part of him. 

But today it grates. It makes his friends feel like costumes. It makes Jess seem--like she was just a part in a play. Exit, burned on ceiling. It's fucking infuriating. Or devastating. Or--

You'll never know her, Sam thinks, as he scans the detective. Dean will never know her. None of these people are ever going to get the chance to--

Then he sees something. Just a glimmer. Like light glancing off a penny. 

Sam quints.

"Hey, earth to Sam!"

Dean's voice is sharp, and his grip on Sam's wrist smarts. He's pulling Sam's hand away from the body. "Don't add necro to your Weird Sex 101 for the day, man," Dean hisses, more privately.

Sam jerks backward, suddenly aware again of the world around him. He'd had his fingers around the dead guy's throat.

Dean grips Sam's shoulder for a moment. He looks like he's about to speak, to offer his concern or to launch into some bizarre narrative of Sam and Dead Guy's mutually consensual throat-touching fetish or whatever, but Sam spares himself the trouble of either by speaking first.

"Do you know what--I mean, who--killed him?" he asks frostily. 

The voice in his head insists, one last time, to anyone in psychic earshot, _You'll never know her the way I did. Your loss._

"No sign he had any company, if that's what you mean," says the detective.

"So, doors locked, no one in or out, nothing like that?"

“Son,” says the detective gravely. “They found your friend with his pants at his ankles and a belt around his neck. Hanging off the doorknob by his own damn belt! 

"I’ll let you two figure out what to tell his folks.”

Then there's a clatter of static across multiple police radios, and the detective excuses himself, marches briskly toward a uni. From what Sam can gather, a car spun out on Highway 2 like a marble and now the whole freeway’s a mess. That means this dead drifter’s dropped a thousand rungs on a couple ladders. So the cops haul the body off to the morgue and all they do to secure the scene is lock the door and tell the motel guy to cancel the maid service. Sam’s certain that won't be an issue.

And really, what was there to secure? Sam's seen no evidence of any other guests here, so it's probably just them and the motel guy--and frankly, motel guy's acting bored enough that this probably isn't the first time someone's died at his motel. He knows the drill. Not to mention the police probably expect him and Dean to follow them to the morgue, grief-stricken college buddies that they are. 

“Guess I’m glad we got the possum room,” Dean murmurs, as the tide of police recedes.

“You think the possum’s connected?” Sam asks, dubious.

“Nah,” Dean says, as he makes a move on the door's lock. “I'm just saying, I'll take the random possum. Because it’s just like you said--only gets worse.”

“Let’s see how worse,” Sam mutters. 

Because sure, maybe it's a natural death. Shit happens. But if Dean's interested, then the guy's probably some hunter. And if the guy's a hunter, then they don’t have a choice but to investigate. Statistically speaking, if there’s a hunter around, there’s probably shit going down. And 'probably' usually means yes.

Of course, all Sam wants to do is get the hell out of here. They have enough of their own shit to deal with; they don't need to inherit this guy's. But he knows Dean's not gonna let them leave. In Dean's book, that's just not something you get to do.

And--that glimmer. Which Sam may or may not have seen. But Sam's been seeing a lot of things lately, and he knows he can't rule that out, either.

Damn it.

When the door swings open, Sam’s half-expecting a wall of strange to greet them. Newspaper clippings, crime scene photos, scans of ancient texts. But the walls are bare and the room is empty, except for the fifth of whiskey on the nightstand and several empty boxes of those pocket pies, crumby traces littering the floor.

Sam picks one up. “Wow. You must have been best friends,” he deadpans.

Instead of a retort, there’s a whoosh as Dean drops onto the bed behind him.

Sam turns to find Dean with his eyes screwed meditatively shut, his jaw set. 11:45AM and it’s Knee 1, Dean Winchester 0.

It occurs to Sam, briefly and impulsively, that in this instance it might not matter what Dean would or would not let them do. He's in no position to make that call, let alone enforce it; and maybe some things are worth more than some dead hunter. Like finding Dad. Like helping Dean.

Who could easily end up just some dead hunters, Sam realizes. They all could.

So Sam doesn't argue for another game plan. They can't leave; it's hunter honor code, or something. It might be the one rule hunting even has--if a guy goes down, you gotta get the thing that killed him. 

According to John Winchester. 

Still, even if the guy was a hunter--and Sam's just assuming, since annoyingly, Dean has yet to volunteer any actual information--Sam's not convinced there's a thing to kill. By now all of last night's paranoias seem stupid, and this just feels like some guy who made a dumb mistake.

“See if you can find his bag,” Dean wheezes, when he realizes Sam’s staring at him expectantly. He slips their pill bottle from his pocket. 

“Are you okay?”

“Ask me in half an hour.” Dean tries to raise his leg, as if to check whether painkillers were an instantaneous fix after all, but it’s as misguided as Sam presumed it would be. 

“How many more of those do we have?” Sam asks again.

“I really don’t care.” Dean takes a deep, thirsty breath. “Just-- Go find something useful.”

“So you think he was actually working a case,” Sam says. "I'm just assuming he's a hunter. Since we're obviously not college buddies."

Dean shrugs. If he catches the venom in Sam's tone, he ignores it. “Notes, wallet, the rest of his booze. Figure he’s no good to any of it anymore, so it's all fair game if we find it. If it's a monster, we'll kill it. And if it's spoils, well. To the victors.”

Sam’s not sure what to say to that. 

“I’ll call someone, if that makes you feel better,” Dean promises. "But I can guarantee you this guy doesn't have a will. His shit's going in our trunk or it's going in the dumpster."

Three seconds crumble between them and Sam's still not sure what to say, so he pushes deeper into the room, silent. 

Two weeks ago, Dean was too noble to get help from a faith healer; two minutes ago, too noble to just fucking leave and deal with their own shitstorm. Now they're grave robbing, and from a hunter. Yes, the very same hunter they're now honorably bound to avenge.

Naturally.

Sam upends the guy's bathroom, the toiletries weathering the brunt of Sam's frustration. He finds the guy’s wallet, and more booze. There’s a toothbrush balanced on the lip of the sink, run down to almost nothing. It’s impressive; Sam’s already lost or forgotten seven toothbrushes in the last six months, which he’d always assumed was just a curse of the road. Not for this guy, though. 

His name is--Sam glances at the ID in the wallet--Mackie Sutherland, from Keating, Nebraska--and he loves this toothbrush.

There’s also two different kinds of floss in the trashcan, balled up as though their user rubbed them between his palms before disposing of them. Sam gags a little. 

The rest is unremarkable--a handful of cheap razors, bundled together with a rubber band; a bottle of dandruff shampoo smattered with bright orange clearance stickers; a Speed Stick. Maybe fifty bucks in tens and ones. There’s a Polaroid against the mirror, the guy and some woman--pretty, in a starched white shirt. She has a name tag, but it’s too blurry to read. 

None of that is much to go on, if Sam's looking for some kind of biography. The sum total of Mackie Sutherland’s belongings is a ratty backpack filled with socks, a T-shirt, a pair of muddy jeans and several underwears (soiled, to Sam’s dismay). There’s a gun at the bottom of the bag, and a rosary. A fraying box of ammo, mostly empty. Other than that, he has a cell phone--plugged in, but dead. Bum outlet.

Or power surge, Sam reminds himself, because this could be a case. Still, he can’t shake the sense that it’s not; it’s a drooping feeling, heavy and sluggish. There’s no murder here, no vengeance to exact; no line of duty to validate his passing. Just a guy and his dick and a mistake. And two more guys, just robbing his grave. 

He and Dean aren’t helping anyone with this. It's shameful to even pretend.

 

\--

 

When Sam re-emerges with the pack, Dean’s on the ground, though it seems like this was more or less intentional. He is, in fact, checking under the bed--no possum. Just a sock. Dean lets the coverlet drop.

“You’re not going to get that?” Sam says.

“I’m sorry, were you _not_ raised in this claptrap?”

One of these days, Sam should tell him that’s not what that word means, and that's not how it's used.

“It could be a poor man’s hex bag,” Sam points out.

“Your possum is a poor man’s hex bag,” Dean snaps, then shushes him.

It’s then Sam realizes Dean’s on the phone, presumably with Mackie’s “folks.”

He allows himself to be shushed.

Just another dead hunter or not, Mackie’s the first one Sam’s actually seen. Before he’d left, he’d never been welcome on a hunt where anything short of your own stupidity was likely to get you killed; his father was big on ‘Your training will save you,’ a mantra oft repeated. If John didn’t know what a thing was, or how to take it down, Sam was fifty miles away, in some library, doing bookwork at a distance. And Dean was with him. Usually. Sometimes. Sam’s actually not sure. 

These last six months with Dean have probably been the most danger Sam’s ever headlined, even with the whole of his childhood in the running. If John’s ever buried a hunter, Sam certainly wasn't allowed to know. Because if you know what’s out there, and it gets you killed, that’s your own damn fault. In his father’s words: Your training will protect you. Listen to me. Don’t you ever walk away from this. This is what will keep you safe. You know how to hunt, and you will be protected. 

You will always be protected.

It’s not that Sam’s ever believed this--living under Dean’s sky will inure you to the wonders of hyperbole pretty quick--but he’s glad, nevertheless, that Dean’s the one making this call. That he knows what to say. He knows how to explain, probably to that woman in the white shirt, what happened. Maybe he even knows her name. Knows what she'll need to hear.

Sam’s glad it’s Dean, and not him, making that call.

And then Sam’s not.

“Heya! Yeah, just looping you in. Mackie’s dead,” Dean says, without a hint of condolence. He's not even holding it--it's nestled casually between his cheek and shoulder.

“Yeah. Yeah, we’ll pour one over for him,” Dean continues.

If nothing else, that doesn’t sound like damage control for the earth-shattering heartbreak Dean just turned into a sound bite. The rest of the conversation sounds just as trite.

"Um, that’s complicated," Dean says. Yeah, he’ll keep them in the loop. Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah. Thirty seconds later, Dean signs off with “You do you, Roy. Whatever,” and that’s that. Check bereavement off the To Do list. It makes Sam wonder how Dean even chose whom to call.

"Who was that?" Sam asks.

"A guy named Roy," Dean answers tersely.

"Another hunter?" Sam asks again.

"That'd be the circle we share, yeah," Dean says, still more terse. He's treating it like a stupid question. 

"It's not like me and him and Mackie all went to book club," Dean continues. "What else would he be?"

“Okay, so you know these guys,” Sam redirects. It's an open invitation to elaborate, but Dean’s still checking the carpet for god knows what. “Like, Roy and Mackie. You all know each other. Is there some kind of hunter listserv I don’t know about?”

“A what?”

“You knew this guy, Mackie,” Sam revises. "There a story there, or…?"

Dean shrugs. “Not really. Never really knew him; don't plan to start now. You were the one getting literally touchy-feely with him, so--”

"Well, I mean. Are you okay? We're in his motel room, checking this out. You obviously care that he's dead."

"Don't you? He's a hunter, Sam. I dunno about you, but I don't want to end up like your little marsupial friend!"

“I'm just saying, you knew who to call. Like--”

“Not really,” Dean admits. “Roy's just another guy.”

"Are you doing this just to be annoying?"

"Doing what?"

Sam crosses his arms. "Answering with non-answers."

"He's a guy. He's a hunter. Odds are, something probably followed him here, killed him, and now we gotta finish the job. Where's the mystery?"

Sam wants to ask, Who is he to _you_? Why is this important to _you_? But after all the work it took to get Dean to divulge the bare minimum, Sam can't figure out how to phrase it in a way that doesn't make his curiosity sound like an inquisition. Sue him for wanting to know more about his brother.

"If Roy's 'just another guy,' are you actually gonna call someone who matters? Is Roy?" Sam asks.

All Dean says is, “Uh, probably not.”

“Then what's the point? How are you gonna tell his family, or his girlfriend, or--”

“Well, Sam,” Dean cuts in, exasperation burnt into the words. He doesn’t bother looking up. “He ain’t exactly a Jessica Moore.”

Sam’s mind stops. Like plowing into a stone wall. 

He feels the crush in his chest and his throat and all too quick it blossoms at his forehead, too. Sharp pain in his sinuses. He barely registers Dean still talking. Dean says, Real talk, Sam. Mackie probably doesn’t have any of that shit. And if he does, Dean sure as hell wouldn’t be the one to--

“Whoa,” Dean trails off.

It's not an apology. He's not paying attention to Sam anymore. Instead, he's got his gaze fixed on the carpet.

Sam orders his heart to keep beating, his lungs to reinflate, his eyes to see. _Don’t think about her, don’t_

He looks down, too. There’s a trail of tiny, slender pins tracing the pattern of the carpet. They’re obvious where Dean pressed them flat, and Sam can see the ones standing by Dean’s fingers, dark against white skin. Dean presses down more, and there must be hundreds--all pointing the same direction, as if the carpet had grown quills.

“Well, that’s weird,” says Dean.

Sam tries to give a damn about weirdness.


	3. Chapter 3

They're doing this by the book. Those are Dean’s words.

Because they found some pins.

“No ghost I know of,” Dean says. “Mackie always locked down tight. Salt lines, hex bags--the works,” he says.

Let's do this _by the book_ , he says.

They’ve retreated to the possum room, and Dean’s actually taking notes. On a napkin, sure, but they're still notes.

“Maybe he locked the ghost in with him. Put the salt lines down too late and, ended up in a cage match with a ghost, instead,” Sam points out, and Dean frowns. Draws a new column on his napkin.

“That would be ironic,” Dean mutters, pen between his teeth.

Sam offers another possibility. Then another.

They go on like this for some time, Sam listing and Dean logging--a lonely game of 140 questions, with no player who knows the answer. It feels agonizingly slow, with the time it’s taking Dean to scrawl his stupid notes.

Frankly, it's driving Sam insane.

It’s Dad’s method, this thoroughness. It’s the way Sam was trained. And while it probably has its benefits--at least, if you’re learning; or if you’re tracking something big, like whatever killed Mom--to Sam it feels a lot like showing your work when you’re more than capable of doing the mental math.

That’s not really Sam’s style--much to the eternal chagrin of his calculus TA--and Sam’s never really figured it for Dean’s, either. Dean knows Dad’s journal backward, but as far as Sam knows, he hasn’t added anything of his own. Not about that demon on the airplane; and not about skinwalkers, or skinwalker mindmelds. Definitely nothing about Kansas--poltergeists and Mary. Nor reapers.

But he’s logged a napkin’s worth of Sam’s bullshit suggestions just now--even the ones so off-base Sam’s embarrassed he mentioned them. Hell, Sam brought up bax’aan just for the hell of it and Dean didn’t even field the joke. He just wrote it down with all the rest.

"I saw a glimmer. I think. Maybe," Sam offers.

Dean dutifully writes down "glimmer," and that's the last straw.

“Are you kidding me right now? You’re uh, kind of phoning it in, dude,” Sam says finally. "Especially for someone suddenly so intent on professionalism."

Dean’s chewing on his pen again. But even accounting for this impediment, he still answers half a beat too slow. Something about how Sam’s one to talk, since they’re still waiting on College Boy’s genius epiphany. Which is arch, but it suffers on delivery, flat and listless.

On closer scrutiny, Dean doesn’t really seem… Dean's not right. Sam’s not sure how someone can _seem_ blurry--Sam’s vision’s just fine--but that’s what Dean is right now. Blurry and deflated.

He’s staring at the grid he’s made on his napkin, but he doesn’t seem to be getting much out of it. Not that there’s much to get--but that’s the thing. Dean should see that, and he doesn’t. Sam could have told him that an hour ago, but Dean’s brain doesn’t seem to have hit that rung yet.

“Hey, what’s up with you?” Sam asks.

“I feel like shit. Shut up. I’m thinking.”

Dean keeps staring at his napkin.

Now that Sam's looking for the signs, Dean's eyes stand out pink against the eggshell green of his skin--and it's not just the sheen of the room. His focus is buoyed loosely to the note; it bobs waveringly around the words in place of actually reading them.

“Yeah, we got bupkis,” Dean finishes eventually.

“Oh really?” says Sam, in mock surprise. And then, affectation vanished: “Are you in pain?”

“No. That’s why I feel like shit,” Dean replies. And he clarifies, “I told you already. Those shit painkillers are pieces of shit.”

“I really don’t think the side effects are supposed to be that intense. The stuff's not exactly morphine, you know?"

Dean's brain reaches for something, so slowly Sam can practically watch the brain cells stretch, but Dean must lose patience because all he comes up with is, "Okay."

"You seem really sick."

"Oh, for fuck's sake; we're not playing _charades_. I already told you what the issue was."

It's Sam's turn to clarify: Dean's sick, and it's fucking scary. Because yeah, maybe this is par for the course for them, but maybe Sam's hit a point in his life where a shot rings out and Sam just assumes it's hit his stomach. Or his brother. _You would have died,_ he wants to shout. He's helpless against the thought. He sees reapers, or imagines them. They look like the dark rush of river slush in Idaho at midnight, like the shadows pooling under Dean's eyes now.

And maybe it's a boon that Dean's so out of it, because it means Sam doesn't feel bothered to tiptoe around the barbs, the jokes, the moats and castles. He just says, "You shouldn't be taking those."

It's this intense conviction, sudden onset. Sam can't put a finger on exactly why, but there's something about Dean, or the sluggish mess they're in, or the bullshit case they're working, or Dean, or Dean, or Dean, that Sam can't stand. Like an itch in his bones. Sam's tired of seeing warning bells and failing to act on them. He can't lose someone like that again.

"Dean, this isn't--"

"I said I feel like shit, not like I'm dying. There's a difference. It's fine."

Sam runs his tongue hard against the front of his teeth, then bites. Wants to draw blood. Then he says, very calmly, "Last I checked, no one went to med school here; we have no way of knowing that."

"Well, I mean. I've got like, at least half a diploma in death and dying, right? Or work experience, volunteer hours, or something--" He shoots Sam a wide, dumb smile.

"Dean, I'm serious."

Dean looks away. He wads his napkin, but there’s nowhere to throw it--and in any case, it doesn’t have the heft to fly. He lets it wander down to the ground--to feed the possum, maybe.

“Well, put that in Joe Cool’s chart next time, then,” he says eventually. "But right now it's the only game in town. This isn't exactly my idea of a good time, either."

“Josiah Burkovitz,” Sam corrects. "It needs to go on Josiah Burkovitz's chart."

“Whose?”

“Yours! Two weeks ago. Electrocution, heart attack. Ringing any bells?”

“And you remember the name?”

“It was--” Sam starts. “It was you; and you were gonna die; and as far as the morgue was concerned, that was gonna be your name on your toe tag. So yeah, I remember. But the point is, this just isn’t--”

This isn’t going to work. Not if they plan on seeing the next decade. If this is seriously what they’re going to do--save people, hunt things, avenge dead guys with lives that can fit inside a single backpack--this isn’t going to work.

Meds and hospitals can’t feel just as much like cheating death as the bullshit that brought them there. They can’t go into this, no quarter. They can’t just guess their way into a degree in orthopedic medicine; they can’t just play with painkillers, like wizards in potions class. They can’t just wander in and out of the imaginary strongholds of HMOs and Joe Cool’s patient history. You only get so many Hail Marys, and Sam's pretty sure they left theirs back in that river, soggy and overtaxed.

But Dean looks at Sam and Sam looks at Dean and he thinks, what else are they gonna do?

They're trapped.

"You get why this is important to me, right? Like--"

"Sorry," Dean says. "We gotta work this case. And I can't-- I don't think I can handle--"

"Is that what you call this? Working?" Sam cuts in. He gestures to Dean's balled up notes. If Dean needs a cheat sheet to keep their dumb ideas in his head long enough to rule them out, this isn't going to go well.

That hits a nerve, Sam knows, but it's almost reassuring. At least that feels familiar.

Dean closes his eyes. Sam's not sure if that's Dean's way of finishing the argument or what, until Dean finally says, "What if there _is_ something out there, huh? More people could die. Or even if there isn't, we'd freeze to death before fucking pain relief could off me; and if we fuck this up, I at least wanna be able to gimp the fuck out of Dodge. Okay?"

Sam whips his gaze to the window. It's snowing again.

" _Okay_?" Dean repeats, as though saying something louder was the same as saying something better.

“Forget I said anything," Sam punches out, each syllable its own stiff typewriter key. "I’m gonna dig into the local history, see what’s what. I need to clear my head.”

He pulls the pill bottle out of Dean’s jacket, the crumpled mess he’d been sitting on, and doesn’t make a recommendation one way or the other. He salts the door and window. And when Dean’s pockets do not immediately reveal the Impala’s keys, Sam takes the whole jacket. Dean shouldn't be going anywhere anyway.

“I’m gonna dig into the local history,” Sam says again, hand on the doorknob. "I want this done. Like, now."

Dean scoffs. He doesn't say anything about the hopefulness of Sam's timeline. Just, “Local history, huh? Where exactly do you think we are?”

 

\--

 

Once Sam’s actually on the road, he sees what Dean meant.

This is no town, and there are no locals.

Last night, Sam had envisioned some settlement cloaked in darkness, just over the next hill, or the next. There’s nothing out here, though, but for a horizon of slate and the gray gnarl of road-splattered snow on the embankments. Everything is still and silent, and even the potholes seem seem more entrenched, filled with standing water that’s dark and matte in the absence of sun, the clouds thick overhead. The kind of place you could choke on.

Even “strip mall” is glorifying, Sam thinks as he loops back around to the motel. It's certainly not a mall and there's not really much strip. There’s a restaurant, singular. A grocery. A bar. The most impressive thing is the gas station, which frankly doesn’t raise Sam’s hopes. If it were one of those dinky above-ground sorts of operations--the kind that belong to small towns and are designed purely to tide over wayward gas tanks--then he’d feel better. But this gas station is outfitted to service any truck that passed through. There isn't some larger mecca of civilization nearby--this is it.

This is what qualifies.

So much for local history, then, Sam supposes. God knows how far they are from the county seat--or what county this even is. After the bax'aan, they'd basically just a direction and gone.

Sam spent eighteen years on the road and he's still not sure how the United States can possibly have this much empty. Half the country feels like pockets of desolate mirage, while the other half's off building superprocessors in 200-story silicon castles.

It shouldn't be this easy to drop off the map.

Absently, Sam cruises past the mall one more time and retraces Dean’s steps. The restaurant is Chinese (and doubles as a laundry, Sam notes with a tinge of historical shame). Doughnuts, also Chinese. Sandwiches and pies, courtesy of the gas station--there’s an advertisement in the window. The rest, Sam assumes, is bar food, though he can’t place the dolmas. He’s not sure if that’s a good enough reason to start researching Greek monsters.

There’s no library to hole up in, no families in trouble. No mysterious patterns, concerned citizens. No civilians. Sam’s not even sure how many rooms their motel even has--there can’t be more than three or four, and one of those might be storage.

All they’ve got is a dead hunter and a carpet full of pins.

The Impala’s fuel gauge is fluttering around empty, thready and sickly uncertain, so Sam rolls up to a gas pump and reaches over to grab Dean’s wallet from his jacket.

He tries the credit card first, but when Dean said “maxed” the other day he meant it; the machine spits it out like the cheap plastic it is. The other cards are all expired.

Sam swallows. That doesn't settle well in his stomach.

He flips quickly through the rest of the wallet's contents.

Dean’s carrying at least five different punch cards for various businesses--one of which is a coffee kiosk in Dillon, Montana, which strikes Sam as a bit ridiculous.

Otherwise, there are some old receipts, and the note Dean had written about Burkitsville, the last time they’d heard from John. No real money, though. A few world-weary ones. Four dimes and three pennies.

Sam digs back into Dean’s pocket. There’d been a place where the lining had frayed, creating a second pocket of sorts; this is where Sam had ultimately located the car keys.

There he also finds a bill, wound tightly around a disfigured paper clip. It looks like an old hundred.

Someone clearly had some time on his hands, Sam thinks. He doesn’t unwind it.

There’s probably some cash stashed in the car somewhere, Sam assures himself. Probably. Still, he's getting the uncomfortable impression that plus or minus some loose change, their collective life savings is spooled around a paper clip.

Sam rubs the pennies.

This is your safety net, he thinks. _And it's strangling you._

Sam frowns, and his hands float to his own pockets. They’re empty, for the most part. (Back in Palo Alto, Sam had spent a bewildering amount of time negotiating with his landlord about their lack of renter’s insurance, which seemed like a stupid way to complement his mourning. The first thing he'd done after he'd slammed the door to the rental manager's office was tell Dean it was his job to fund the revenge bus. All Dean had said then was, "Dude, she's not a bus.")

Sam’s still got Mackie’s fifty.

Fifty-seven, Sam corrects, as he feathers out the bills.

So he fills the Impala halfway, pockets the change, and ends up weirdly proud of the way he coasts her back into the motel parking lot without turning the ignition.

Back in the parking lot, Mackie’s Taurus wagon is obvious, now that the police and the ambulance are gone.

(And where had they even come from? Who’d paid for that? Sam wonders.)

"Thanks for the cash, man," Sam says to the tires as he passes, and feels stupid, but he figures they owe the guy at least that much.

Then again, now they're stuck with his hunt, and Dean's hurt, and Dean's an idiot, so maybe Sam doesn't owe him shit.

Sam backpedals.

Sam scrapes his sleeve across the driver’s side window, snow sloughing off in chunks.

It's unlocked.

“What the hell were you hunting?” Sam murmurs as he slips inside.

The car doesn't answer, but it smells like an ashtray. Which is odd, because Mackie's room hadn’t. Or at least, no more than your average fleabag motel.

Sam hadn’t found any cigarettes with Mackie’s effects, so maybe he’d been trying to quit. Or he just hadn't had time to light up.

Clue or no clue? Sam asks himself. But in the end, he adds the anomaly to the crap pile, just like everything else. It's all smoke and mirrors. What he'd like is a big folder with "GLIMMER: FULL DETAILS INSIDE" printed on the front.

Sam drums his knuckles on the dashboard, biting his lip. Part of him screams, and part of him rallies: FUCK THIS. NO, KEEP GOING. And a third part whispers, _You missed this, didn't you. Doing this kind of work. You've always--_

Sam stops drumming.

There’s another Polaroid, clipped to the sun visor. Same woman as the last, though in this one both she and Mackie look significantly drunker. It's reassuring to Sam that this is not the version Mackie chose to take to bed.

There’s a disassembled gun riding--well, shotgun. Sam chuffs. Sprinkled atop it are several empty packets, which once held sewing pins. That's half-useful, at least--the pins are definitely Mackie's. He was using them for something. And apparently, he's not a great planner. Why take them out of the packaging before going inside? That's stupid.

But Sam breathes in the smell of smoke, and maybe Mackie's just the kind of man who was used to doing secret things outside, before coming back home.

Sam half expects to find a shoebox of mullet rock somewhere--and all the other trappings of home--but there’s nothing. A few ratty blankets and tarps. Some ammo boxes, crushed and empty. Sam thanks God for hatchbacks and climbs into the backseat, but the trunk is no more revealing. Even after Sam pulls up the floor of the trunk and quests around the spare, there’s nothing remarkable. Not even a weapons cache. Just some battery-powered flares and a reflective vest.

Not a career hunter, then. So, what? Part-time hunter, part-time ground control? Nothing adds up; it’s like the guy zeroed out and just wound up here.

Sam blows warmth over his hands, knuckles scraped dry and white against Mackie's dash.

He takes a deep breath. It puffs out white.

Before he confesses defeat, Sam plucks the Polaroid out of the visor and stuffs it in his pocket with the remnants of Mackie’s cash; it’s all he’s got to go on.

Mackie Sutherland. End of the line. No apparent job in progress. Pins on the floor.

He's just another dead guy.

When the day comes, Sam knows that's how he and Dean are gonna end up, too. Because deep down, Sam knows: It's exactly this easy to drop off the map. If no one comes looking for you, then that's it.

You're gone.


	4. Chapter 4

Dean's not making this any easier.

"A week?!" It comes out more shrill than Sam would have desired. It makes him feel like his objection is childish, his sense of betrayal overblown. 

He'd come back in when the sun started to set--it's still light now, if barely, and he already regrets it.

"Four days. Well, three now," Dean confirms, without acknowledging Sam's furrowing brow, the pique in his eyes. "After that, still having gas money got a little dicey. But the room's paid for, there's still some food left. We're just gonna sit tight and I'm gonna figure out what to do."

"About what? The dead guy downstairs, or us?"

"Do you not multi-task?"

It's supposed to be a joke, but if Dean wasn't a good liar this morning, he's a worse one now. Even if no one else can tell the difference, Sam can. It's a twitch in his cheek, the pinch in his eyes--Dean's mind's racing, peg-legged 50 yard crawl that it is, and there's panic in him, somewhere distant but vital. And even now, he's trying not to let Sam know that things are distinctly not all right.

Dean doesn't have a plan; he has an emergency landing, and an emergency landing doesn't care what you break or what you have to leave behind. You're just doing whatever it takes to drop altitude. The problem is, that kind of scramble doesn't tell you what to do when you land in a minefield, or when there's no one around to hear your SOS. Or hell, maybe you land on someone else's dead body--because Sam figures why bother with metaphor when your reality is already vivid enough?

Dean misreads Sam frustration for pure worry. “I’m just-- I need a week to figure this out. I don’t--” he backpedals. He fists the bedsheets and pretends to be distracted by them.

But Sam knows that tone of voice; he heard it growing up all the damn time. He hadn't thought Dean would carry it into their adulthood.

“What about next week?” Sam asks savagely. Four days of downtime at fifty bucks a pop might sound like an extended stay--right up until you're hurting worse than you were at the start of it; or when you have a week's less food, a week's less cash, and you're still face-to-face with a reality that now you really can't afford.

Dean rakes a hand through his hair, and when it comes away silty, gray with last night's misadventure, he doesn't return the volley. Instead, Sam watches him give up.

"Next time _you_ can play matador with the bog cow, and I’ll do--whatever it is you were doing,” he says.

“I was playing matador with a bog cow,” Sam points out.

Dean pauses. 

“Touché."

Then Dean's done. 60 to zero--or 15-in-the-school-zone to zero, he's just done. And Sam can't keep this afloat without him.

This is what it feels like to have a fight bleed out, Sam realizes. When exhaustion claims principles and fear eats away at resolve. Because this is a fight they need to have, Sam's certain--but it's like he has front row seats, and he's watching Dean's presence of mind gored out of him. 

Maybe it's the pain, or stress, or Dean just peacing the fuck out. Sam watches the light go out of his eyes, like someone's broken his neck. He watches the edge slip from Dean's carry.

It's not that Sam's never seen Dean crash before. He'd just--forgotten, maybe. The way you forget the names of people you don't expect you'll see again. That hospital hadn't counted--everyone is tired when they're on nine different heart medications. 

This is different.

To watch him drop straight to rock bottom now, when no one's dying and frankly, everyone's going to need to burn hard to stay that way, isn't something Sam knows how to deal with. He feels like if he makes any wrong move, Dean's going to end up hurt, and that's more vulnerability than Sam can handle.

Luckily, Sam knows how to execute an emergency landing, too.

“I can’t believe you let us keep the possum room," Sam says. "I mean, I obviously wasn't-- And I didn't know we were gonna be here for a _week_. You could have said something.”

Dean shrugs, doesn't quite rise to the opportunity for comedy at Sam's expense, but it gets him talking. He's even lucid. “Mackie’s room is free for the taking now."

“The Motel Guy already thinks I’m ‘needy.’ He let me borrow this, though.” Sam frowns as he throws a coiled Ethernet cord at Dean. 

It's the most normal thing he can think to do. 

“This place barely gets cable. You’re telling me it has Wifi?”

“The point is that it doesn’t,” says Sam. “That’s what the--you know what, never mind. Yeah, there’s supposed to be Internet. Password is Rime. R-I-M-E, not R-H--”

“Obviously,” Dean interjects curtly. 

Under normal circumstances, Dean tends to be pretty comfortable not giving a damn about things he doesn't give a damn about, but for four seconds he's visibly annoyed. Then the annoyance dissipates. It's weird to watch his persona falter like that.

But Dean seems to recognize this, however abstractly, and Sam surmises it's some sort of all-purpose apology when Dean says, "I just meant--Rime is the name of this town."

Dean knows this beat as well as Sam does: If they want peace, they're going to have to improvise with what they've got. So Sam lets his exhaustion take him into bed. 

Dean hisses as Sam’s weight sucks him toward the center of the mattress, mutters something about Sam’s squirmy ass. But he seems to relax.

"There's another bed, you know. You could just get rid of the--"

"I don't want to ever talk about the possum again. Besides, the Ethernet port’s on this wall, and the cable isn’t long enough. Some of us need to work,” replies Sam, matter-of-factly. “Turn on that lamp, will you?”

“At least shower, or brush your teeth or something,” Dean grumbles, but he switches on the bedside lamp, settles into a version of himself that he can handle.

(They have to hold on to this. Every jest, every touch makes it easier.)

Sam cranes toward the lamp, stretching over Dean’s chest. There’s a faint inscription on the back of Mackie’s Polaroid that Sam can't quite read.

(He feels Dean under him, steady and solid. He just wants--

to keep Dean close--)

“Ouch! That’s my pec, you asshole. Put your bony elbow someplace else. I’m not a sex doll just chilling over here--”

“Good, then you won't pop,” says Sam, as he squints at the Polaroid. “Also, there's exactly one person in this room who's used that shower, and it sure as hell wasn't you.”

Then Sam says, “Sara.”

_Sam, stop._

“What?” says Dean, from beneath him.

"That's what this says." Sam waves the Polaroid and climbs back over Dean. "I found it in Mackie's car; he had one in his bathroom, too. Same waitress. I think her name is Sara."

"Congratulations," says Dean, rubbing his chest. 

_We need to tell her,_ Sam thinks. But he says, "I dunno; maybe she knows something about whatever Mackie was after. Or why he was in Rime."

_Sam, don't fuck this up. Just get back in bed, close your eyes, and take the peace you fucking deserve. Push everything else out. You might not get another chance._

"What could his girl tell you that his car wouldn't?" Dean asks.

"Sara matters," Sam says, his throat tight. Even he knows he sounds crazy, but Sara matters. She has to. She matters. "We need to tell her what happened."

Dean grabs the back of his shirt before Sam can take off.

"Chill for a second," Dean says. "Are you okay? You're on first-name terms with a Polaroid."

And Sam's not even entirely sure why, but he feels this pinprick of white hot rage--it's going to cook him from the inside out. It's just--Dean is fucking unbelievable, if he's going to act like the last twenty minutes never happened. Like oh, Dean's fine, and Sam's the one they need to watch out for. Then it's gone. 

He still snaps, "You, of all fucking people, do not get to ask me that."

Dean drops his hand, and they splinter away from each other again. Because that's what this is, isn't it; it's not reprieve, and it's not conciliation. It's bending, bending, and bending--right up until they snap.

"Look," Dean says. "I don't-- If it's hunting, or Jessica, or--I don't know. But you've been seriously wigging me out--like, for a while now--and I just wanna make sure--"

This is definitely a snap.

Sam wants to put Dean's head through a mirror and make him pick up the pieces with his eyeballs. _Right back at you,_ he wants to scream. _Also, fuck you._

"Fuck you," he says aloud.

"Okay," Dean says eventually, and folds into himself, arms over his chest. 

Sam knows he's supposed to catch this--he's not supposed to let the conversation go, not this way. But he doesn't say anything. He doesn't know how to say it, anyway.

Dean feigns sleep.

Sam thinks, They were so close. They were so close to being okay--just for a night. But when things go up in flames, they go up quick.

 

\--

 

"Feign" is a strong word. Dean is definitely not asleep, and he is definitely in pain. Worse than last night--that much Sam can tell, even with the lights out. 

He'd hoped, and he knew Dean had hoped--had based his entire gameplan around this hope, actually--that whatever damage he'd done would level out at an acceptable misery. Stiff and sore--maybe throbbing--but not actively, immediately painful. Sam doesn't know much about knees, aside from "they're complicated," but he knows that fantasy is no longer on the table.

This isn't the way they needed this to go.

By some miracle they'd made it through every ghost in Lawrence, and cheated death--literally. But Sam can feel Dean slipping into a tailspin, whether by pain or drugs or just by Dean being Dean; and Sam's not sure how much more they can take. 

Because Dean's right about Sam, too--fuck him, honestly; but he's still right. 

It's been six months, and Jess _hurts_. Tumorously. And there's no escaping that. And he knows it seems random, and probably worrisome. 

It _is_ random. 

It is and it isn't. 

It's Jess.

It's not that he's haunted 100% of the time. Jess isn't on his mind every moment of every day, and if he keeps busy enough she doesn't hurt. Dean's dime-store grief counseling crap, however idiosyncratically dispersed, isn't wrong about that. But he and Dean have been running since Nebraska--maybe even since Stanford--and if the last few days are any indication, that's going to kill them, too. And things--stupid, random things--keep reminding him of Jess.

He wants to be reminded of Jess. He wants to keep her. But sometimes she hurts so much he forgets where he is, what he's doing. And when it doesn't hurt, he forgets the need to brace himself. Then the wave hits, and everything topples over all at once.

Sam just doesn't need to hear all that from Dean, because Dean's part of the goddamn problem. It's too easy to imagine losing him. It would make too much sense, to have to lose him.

Sam stares up at the ceiling and he tries to arrange his innards into something survivable: Jess! Dean! Drowning! Rivers! Dead guy! Frogs! Anger, terror, agony. Trenchant despair. Nerves. More nerves. MONEY. There are too many immediate things Sam needs to deal with right now. It's impossible to pick a right path out of the maelstrom.

So instead of the right one, Sam chooses the hardest one: His brother. It's a mistake, if Sam's goal is to check anything off his list of concerns, or win any battles--or even keep his shit categories neatly separate. But Dean is a mistake he'll make every time.

He takes a deep breath, and says, "You smell like vomit."

"Well, while 'some of us' were working--if that's what you call that--the rest of us were sacrificing our bowels to the porcelain gods. Sorry."

"So are you done with those, then?" he asks Dean.

Sam doesn't even bother gesturing. 

"I can't decide," Dean answers, without opening his eyes. 

"There's a hospital, maybe sixty miles out. Clinic's a little further, but probably cheaper."

"Doesn't matter. I can't pay for either of those."

"What do you mean, 'I'? Why are you suddenly an 'I'? It's supposed to be the family business, isn't it?"

"Do you see Dad rushing in with the assist?"

" _I'm_ here."

"Well, I don't know how to fix this for you."

Dean still doesn't sound--quite right. Sam can't place the sense, but the words sound chewed up and raw, and Sam can't help but feel like he's busted open a piñata. 

"We're talking like a couple hundred dollars, Dean. Just so we know what we're dealing with."

"Sam, we don't _have_ a couple hundred dollars. We just don't. And even if we did--we're talking gas there. X-rays. Probably some actual doctoring, and god knows after that. At which point we're still broke, and I assume you want to eat. Oh, and gas back, because something's still killing people out here! Unless you got a G-string filled with cash you haven't mentioned, I don't know-- I can't see--"

"I'm not six months old anymore, Dean," says Sam. "I can handle these things."

Dean's eyes widen. "So you _do_ have a--"

"What? No!"

But Sam's taken Dean's numbers and done some math of his own. What it boils down to is, there's two of them. Two bodies, one credit card, six months. And however long it's been since Dad's been home, so to speak. Which was longer than the few days Dean had led with, than the few weeks Sam had assumed, and the few months Dean had ultimately admitted. Dean's been alone for a long damn time, and now it's showing. All at once.

Up until probably this very moment, Sam had always assumed Dean and his illicit credit card had things under control. Dean's always acted that way--and Sam's talking _always_ always, since they were kids always. But hey, silver bullets don't come cheap.

The point is, their proverbial bank account's always been a low-grade fever--it never felt good, but it hadn't really seemed like that big a deal, in the scheme of things. Now it feels like the flu that kills you even if the plane crash didn't.

"Did you ever, like... notice we were running out of money?" Sam asks. 

He just wants to know how willing Dean is to keep him in the dark--how much Sam apparently cannot be trusted with this kind of thing. He wants to know if that's what this comes down to. Or maybe it's just that Dean can't handle this anymore. It's too much. It's-- 

Sam's not sure which scenario he's rooting for. He's not sure if he should be angry or concerned. But he realizes too late that either way, his question sounds like an accusation.

"I tried," Dean says.

"I didn't mean it that way."

"I tried."

"Dean, I know you did."

"Fuck."

"Dean--" Sam starts, but he's not sure there's anything to say. 

Maybe they killed that rawhead, released that reaper, slashed that bax'aan's throat. Maybe they'll kill this thing in Rime. But this is what's gonna get them: They have $127.34, four more nights, half a tank of gas, and some cold leftovers to their name. Out here, there's nowhere to go but down; and even then, they're going to have to limp.

But something has to work. Something has to save them. If he can fix Dean up and push the shit meter back to zero, or at least single digits, then the rest doesn't matter.

"Health insurance," Sam says suddenly. "Fuck the rest. How do we get you health insurance?"

"Maybe-- If we find Dad..." Dean suggests, and it's like he has no idea how pathetic that sounds.

And okay, there's the thing: Sam knows before he even says anything that this is not what saves them. This is not the direction this conversation needs to go. But the words tumble out, and it doesn't matter what Sam foresees. He can't stop himself.

"Find Dad?! Dean, the man clearly doesn't want to be found. So what the fuck did he think you were gonna do if something like this happened?"

"Stay lucky?"

"Stay lucky? You're fucking with me, right?"

"Dad doesn't exactly operate with that kind of margin of error in mind, Sam! I know it's been a couple of years since you been in the game, but do you honestly--"

"Don't give me that crap; I've seen Dad torn up plenty. He had to have known this was only a matter of time. Something like this was gonna happen eventually. So what the fuck was his big, magical plan?"

"Well, fucking frankly, none of this would have happened if you'd just let me die the first time," Dean snaps.

Sam feels kicked. Steel-toed boot to the gut.

"Is that still what you want?" Sam whispers. His cheeks burn.

And Dean must realize his mistake. "It never was," he says, finally. 

"Sam, it never was."

 

\--

 

The dream Sam has that night is stupid. He's supposed to be counting ducks--fluffy, yellow, honest-to-god duckling ducks. But he keeps getting the number wrong, and he feels like he can't see properly. His peripheral vision's off. Then it turns out the ducks are in Jess's new house. You know, the one she moved into after Sam left. They're Jess's ducks, except maybe they're not; maybe they're just there. He can't count them.

Then Jess is on top of him, slippery against his cock and pink in all the right places, her hands around his throat. Just her hands this time, because they're still getting the hang of this, and she doesn't want to hurt him. He knows because that's what she keeps saying--babe, let me know if I'm hurting you, let me know if I'm hurting you, am I hurting you? okay let me know though okay okay okay okay OH. Which makes Sam laugh, because Jess loves dirty talk, or the idea of it, but Sam just can't fucking deal. He laughs and then he chokes and then he can't breathe at all. And Jess doesn't notice, just keeps bouncing, keeps telling him, _I don't want to hurt you._

(And it was 82 ducks, which isn't even that many ducks.)


	5. Chapter 5

_who dis?_

That's the text message that wakes Sam up. 

He opens his inbox and finds a text he must have sent at some point in the night. It's about ducks and how funny he thinks they are. Apparently. But he knows immediately it was meant for Jess. It's the kind of random they reserved for each other.

You idiot, he thinks to himself, and types, _lol sorry wrong #_. He doesn't laugh out loud.

The stranger on the other end does not reply.

Weird twilights like this make Sam feel really fucking pathetic. He can't imagine this is what normal people do; never mind normal people, it's not even what he feels like _he_ does. Waking up to his morning bout of borderline weepiness about ducks just isn't how Sam envisions himself. Yet here he is.

Dean stirs beside him, but it's only to wrestle with their pill bottle, then smack his lips as he swallows. Then Dean's still again.

Sam tries to go back to sleep, too--to dream better. They've gotten more sleep in the last two days than they have in the last two weeks; and if this is their last motel room, they might as well use the shit out of it.

But the next time he wakes, it's still dark and it's too cold to pretend this bed is comfortable.

"Dean," Sam tries.

No answer.

It's suffocating, feeling alone like this. But even if Dean were awake, he's not sure how much it would matter. Talking to Dean--about anything that matters--isn't easy. And if Sam can't think about Jess without remembering she died, he can't think about Dean without thinking that he might. What if--what if!--Sam loses him? What if Dean lets himself get lost, because Sam didn't hold on tight enough? How can Sam hold on tightest?

Get Dean to hold him back, obviously. Would Dean need a reason? Did Sam have any to give?

_You're my brother. Don't leave me._

_Please don't leave me._

Sam sends another text message.

It's to Jerry, whom Sam hasn't spoken to since probably last summer--their paths hadn't crossed all last semester, and neither of them had thought much of it up until Jess died. He's Sam's Roy, Sam figures. Or his Mackie. This obscurity makes its way to Sam's fingertips as reckless bravery, and before he can second-guess himself he tells Jerry, random dude-from-PHIL-340 Jerry, _im so fucked up abou my brother righ now_

Then, hasty damage control: _its sam W btw, if you don't remember_

_from zupancics class_

And it must still be pathetic o'clock, because Sam stares at his phone, waiting for an answer.

Still, he jumps when his phone chimes.

_[text 1 of 3] sam!!!!!! i know who you are u choad im so sorry about jess and about ur brother i saw on the news thats fucking batshit im [text 2 of 3] so sorry like i u dont deserve all this shit listen im biking to campus rn 9AM CHEM MMIDTERM WTF [text 3 of 3] but if ur back n the bay lets hang k?? just talk no wild keggers promise sry that was a joke also im so sorry :(_

It takes Sam a moment to decipher all this, not least because he'd forgotten yet again about Dean's other-other death. After he, you know, assaulted and nearly killed Little Becky. Dean Winchester's in no one's graces back in California. And honestly, now Sam's fucking mad about that, too. Or he would be, but he checks his watch and it's 10AM and it's too late in the day for more pity parties. That's not who Sam is.

"Dean," Sam says, knocking his elbow lightly between Dean's scapulae. "Dean, Mackie Sutherland awaits."

He jabs harder.

"Dean, it's 10AM."

"Don't touch me," Dean responds.

Whatever. 

Sam resolves to pry himself from the covers. It's too cold for this shit. When he's dressed and rinsed he digs through the empty food containers, damp with oil and moisture, and locates a pocket pie.

"I'm going to eat this without you," he calls loudly. When this elicits nothing, Sam lets the motel room door slam loud behind him and ventures forth in search of the motel's continental breakfast, heretofore apocryphal. He's rewarded a grudging "Good morning" from Motel Guy and some pastries for his trouble. Smashed flat in their individual industrial bags, they're still a significant step up from the pocket pie.

To kill time, he plays a game with himself, sliding a pastry into his jacket every time the Motel Guy wanders out of sight. While not immediately boring, the novelty fades quickly; the stakes of the game had seemed infinitely higher when he'd been eighteen at Stanford, and still had some self-respect. Sam leaves the table with the morning still young.

Dean's still sleep when Sam returns--though after Sam spends another three hours on fruitless research and a full load of laundry, waiting for Dean to carpe diem, Sam's beginning to think 'unconscious' is more apt. 

Every so often, he checks to make sure Dean's still breathing. During one of these checks, Sam finds Dean staring glassy-eyed back at him.

"Good morning," says Sam. "It's 2PM."

"Fuck off," croaks Dean, and his eyelids sink.

"You'll feel better if you eat something," Sam says. "I brought you some fresh stuff--well, sort of."

But Sam's already lost him.

And that's the thing with Dean: He'll go, and he'll go, and he'll go at something, long past any designated breaking point, until he's maybe seven-eighths of the way to some impossible goal. And then he'll drop the ball, down eight flights of stairs and into a vat of dry ice. And he'll shatter right along with it. 

One day, this is going to get him killed. 

Sam's first impulse is to panic, just because of that stupid errant fucking thought, but he doesn't rise to it. There's a decent chance Dean's fine this time; he'll sleep this off and find his head and they'll pitch back toward their usual grind--so long as Sam stays out of the deep end, too. But there's this tiny percentage at the back of Sam's mind that whispers, Maybe not. Maybe not this time. He knows it's not a matter of if, but when.

It's not that Sam could point to anything in particular. Nothing tellable--not that Sam has anyone to tell. If Sam couldn't summon John to Dean's deathbed, Sam's certainly not going to try to report anything less. It's not like Dean's got a gun to his chin, and he hasn't tried to jump off more bridges than usual, and he hasn't exactly found his calling shooting up heroin in the street. But sometimes they're together, and Dean just has this incredible knack for making small things terrifying. He's just goddamn lucky the monster downstairs has the patience of a saint. It hasn't decided to just claw down their door and be done with it. Sam knows it'd win if it tried. 

Dean's wadded paper ball is still under the bed.

It doesn't even feel like they're on a job right now. Clearly, Dean can't actually manage one; and even though Sam's been working, ostensibly this whole time, his real attentions have been everywhere but.

Sam can't keep his mind from whatif-ing. What if he were still at school, and Dean had come out here alone. What if Sam had said no. What if nothing had happened to Jess, and he were still at school, and Dean had come out here alone. Say Dean checked himself into the room for a week, loaded up on food and hoped to hell everything would sort itself out. How many times had he done that in the past? How many times would that work, before the strategy tapped itself out and left Dean for dead?

Not that Sam's done much to help, except to help Dean run through his credit twice as fast. He's done fuck all to get Dean better, and there doesn't seem to be anything more he can do. Sam's basically useless.

No, that's not entirely true. If Sam weren't around for this, Dean would have drowned in that river. He'd be rotting under the hooves of a bog cow, a fester under the ice.

And Sam-at-school never would have known what happened to him.

If Sam loses Dean, it probably won't be to any grand gesture--a heart attack would be too obvious, and a monster too literal. Instead it'll be a smorgasbord, thin fractures accruing.

Sam has the shades drawn, so the only light's the mellow bumble of their bedside table lamp. He supposes it's meant to be sensual, or at least homey, but all it does is deepen the shadows under Dean's eyes, the gnarl of scab and clotted blood just above his ear, from the river. 

Sam resists the urge to wipe the unwashed grime from the creases of Dean's neck.

"Dean, I can't lose you."

 

\--

 

Sam throws the rest of the afternoon into the same wasteful vortex of nothing he'd begun that morning. And truly, that's 70% of hunting. Painstaking research and nothing to show for it. Hunting is the skill with which you swallow down disappointment after disappointment, like swords. After his thousandth dead end, he pulls out Sara's photo again.

Sam will never admit this aloud, but hunting is easier when there are families at stake. Parents and their children, young stupid lovers--loving, lovely people. Part of Sam needs Sara to know where Mackie's gone, just in case she cares. Another part just needs to know she does. He needs Mackie to feel worth saving. Or avenging, at this point.

He thinks of Sara, and keeps working.

The sun's setting behind the drawn shades, red light slatting over Sam's laptop screen, before he finds anything worth bookmarking. It's a clarity spell, which he'd only stumbled upon after mindlessly link-hopping from one whackadoo crystal-smudging-sage-burning-gem-priestess's website to the next. This site is the first thing he's found that mentioned pins outside of voodoo, though.

"Hey. I actually found something." Sam jogs Dean's shoulder. "You haven't slipped into a coma or anything, right?"

Dean mumbles something that sounds like 'hell no,' which is reassuring, but he won't be roused.

"Fine. I'll just solve this entire case by myself, then."

Sam keeps scrolling. The spell is supposed to be like blacklight for magical influence. The website's idea is, You throw a bunch of pins on the ground, and then use the spell to divine their meaning. Low-grade spellwork--the kind that gets you just enough of a reading to excite the novice, but not enough to actually be useful. 

"Did you give it a shot, Mackie?" Sam ask the cold air.

He's heard of hunters start from pins and work up to seeing the actual, magical threads attached--or hunters who'd watched the fae themselves weave nets of fate and cast them over crowds of people, like unsuspecting schools of fish. 

But if that's what Mackie was going for, and if it's really a fate-weaving fae they're after, they weren't supposed to be malevolent, and Sam's not sure he's ever heard of it getting anything killed. They're called serendipities, for God's sake: They gave people the spring in their step, or led them to pennies on the ground, or kept dress shirts white. Even if Mackie's death were an accident, Sam's pretty sure serendipities didn't usually try to get you off. They're just wrinkles of energy, really--collections of photons on the furthest end of ultraviolet. 

Still, if that was Mackie's lead, the glimmer Sam did/didn't see could make sense. If Sam's grasping at straws, at least there _are_ straws.

Grabbing John's journal out of the duffel, Sam flips through it until he finds the page he's looking for. Seattle, 1987--a scrap pulled from a U.S. census, demography turned into a sunburst by a dozen different lines radiating out towards a dozen different descriptions of monsters. In the margins: LONGSHOREMEN. FISHING. LEAVES NO TRACES. LOOK UP JAPAN / CAME WITH IMMIGRANTS. MANY SALMON. CASE CLOSED.

Closed, but not elucidated. Sam resists the urge to rip the page out.

_Think, Sam._

All the fishing stuff tracked with his fishnet fae theory, in any case. A Japanese spirit might have felt right at home, granted the fishermen a couple extra salmon. Obviously John hadn't killed or sealed it, or he would have written that part down. Maybe Sam's dealing with Version 2.0: Murder Edition. Maybe Japanese fishing spirits weren't built for rural Idaho.

A few more web searches gives Sam a full and vibrant history of Idaho's Japanese population (World War II, Japanese internment, forced relocation) and a less full, less vibrant index of the Japanese spirit world. The best page he can find just says, "Like many Japanese spirits, they rely on the energy of human dreams. They can weave beautiful things."

But maybe that's vibrant enough. Rime, Idaho isn't a good place for dreams. Perhaps this lonely, displaced spirit has forgotten how to make beautiful things.

"This makes sense," he assures himself. "Totally."

No it doesn't. What, is this glowing ball supposed to be vengeful? Disillusioned? Did glowing balls have agency? Could they glitch? Was it really just not equipped to handle Rime's dreams? This whole process reminds him of writing Gen. Ed. take-home finals, at 3AM, using someone else's notes.   
But if 70% of hunting is fielding useless information, 29% is using what you have to build a wild yet practicable theory--based mostly on far-out conjecture, dim recollection, and liberal bootstrapping. The remaining 1% is having the balls to give it a shot.

Or maybe it's just a ghost, after all.

Sam needs Dean to idea-bounce with. Barring that, he needs more information. He needs to be able to see what he's up against. That much, he figures, he can get.

He turns back to the webpage that described the pins spell. He clicks through several dozen more links until he finds what he's looking for--that is, what would have been Mackie's next move, if he'd lived that long. 

Bedazzled with a half-dozen blinking, pixelated skulls and crossbones, the next spell description reads, "FOR THOSE WHO DESIRE TO FIND THE FAE, NOT JUST CONFIRM THEM. BUT REMEMBER: LOOK INTO THE ABYSS AND THE ABYSS LOOKS INTO **YOU!!!!** PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!!!"

Sam rolls his eyes. He didn't get through three years of college without developing a "fuck you" reflex where bullcrap Nietzsche quotes were concerned. This spell might be professional-grade ( _six_ skulls!), but it's not exactly black magic. No blood pacts, no summoning, no transubstantiation. 

A quick glance at the ingredients reveals it's an exceptionally simple spell, to boot--the kind that read less like a 6-star recipe more than it does a guest editorial at the back of a health magazine. That is, it was less about the ingredients than the general symbolism of them--substitutions welcome. Whatever's "in your practice." Sam could probably pull the spell together with nothing but their duffel and the microwave downstairs. He could probably do it right now.

Sam glances at the back of Dean's head, then back to his laptop.

He puts on his coat and his boots, and he heads downstairs.

He's standing in front of the microwave with his spell in hand before he pours water into an empty cup and heats that instead. He dumps a packet of instant coffee into the cup and pockets the spellwork.

Because he and Dean are supposed to be in this together.


	6. Chapter 6

"What time is it?" Dean rasps. Some of the syllables catch in his throat, still sticky with sleep. He sucks in breath as his knee reminds him not to move.

"Tennish," Sam says, "PM, that is." Sam's attentions flick down to his coffee, half-empty, and he wonders if he should offer Dean any. Sam hadn't actually expected him to be awake.

"Fuck."

"You're fine." 

"And you say I don't know what that word means," Dean grumbles, as he attempts to extract himself from the bedsheets.

"What do you want me to say?"

Dean waggles an arm, still mummified by sheets. Then he lets himself crumple again, dead limp.

"Uh, Dean?" Sam probes, because this he hadn't expected. Dean is suddenly very still, and it's startling how much Sam _feels_ that. For a split second, it's like finding him in that basement all over again. Or the river.

Then the bed becomes a flashbomb, a surge of white as its contents explode upward and outward, and Dean issues from it at pace. Limping only a little, he grabs the duffel from under the ironing board and marches toward the bathroom. If he'd grabbed a gun, Sam might have assumed Dean was planning to blow someone away, there's so much force to his chain of movement.

"I need a shower," Dean explains. Sort of. 

But when Sam moves to join him in the bathroom, Dean says, "Dude, that wasn't an invitation. We can't do beds _and_ bathrooms."

"But what if your knee--"

"Then leave me on the floor," Dean replies as he slams the door shut. He sounds half-serious.

Sam dumps the rest of his coffee in the trash and shoves John's journal to the bottom of the duffel again. Twelve hours of research, and Sam doesn't feel like he has anything worth acting on. Maybe he and Dean will be able to salvage it together, but that's going to have to wait. 

He tries not to listen as Dean pukes his guts out again, on the other side of the bathroom door, and kneads his forehead. Even if Dean's been sleeping, Sam hasn't. His head aches and his eyes burn and he's so tired he feels like puking, too.

Dean makes it through the next twenty minutes without slipping to his death or otherwise raising the cavalry, at least. When he re-emerges, he says, casually apologetic, "Ran out of hot water. You didn't need any, did you?" 

He's scrubbed pink and dribble from his hair is quickly blotching the back of his shirt--the same one he's been wearing since their bax'aan adventure.

"Dude, seriously?"

"This is the only shirt I own right now! The ER cut my other one. What's wrong with my shirt?"

"Like four feet of storm runoff and bax'aan blood, for starters. Just use one of mine, jesus." 

Sam jumps to the duffel and tosses the first shirt he finds in Dean's face. Dean sniffs it, then hobbles to the side of the nearest bed. Sam takes a seat at its foot. It's the possum bed, and Sam can see the one-too-many possum joke on Dean's lips. 

Dean leaves it. Instead, he says, "Freshly washed and everything. That's peak generosity, Sammy."

"Aren't you cold?" Sam asks. Dean pulls off his old shirt and throws it into the duffel, but then Sam feels the bed bounce as Dean flops backwards onto it.

"Too much California will do that to you," Dean admonishes, but he sounds out of breath. Overambitious shower, apparently.

Sam could turn around, point out Dean's inevitable gooseflesh, but when that reaper saved Dean's heart, it didn't touch the electrocution burns. The burns are superficial and by this point mostly just discoloration, but that almost makes it worse. Dean was a dead man walking and according to the scars, it wasn't even that big a deal. Sam doesn't want the reminder.

"Put a shirt on, will you?" Sam says, and hopes he keeps the pathetic out of his voice.

"Don't like what you see?" Dean answers coyly. Then Sam feels him roll onto his stomach and crawl over the bed toward the nightstand, muttering profanities all the way.

Sam's not sure what part of that plan seemed like a good idea, but when he does finally turn around, Dean's backed up against the headboard, still half-undressed. He flips open a small tac knife and starts sawing at a pill against his open palm. 

Add that to the list of things Sam thinks Dean is just a little too good at.

But Sam can imagine all this having been their ideal morning scenario, had it aired before 10PM. Dean seems fine now. Tired but unruffled. Completely separated from the night before. And if that's the kind of magic eighteen hours will do, maybe Sam should give it a shot.

Again, though, it's hard to trust. Being with Dean feels like standing on a knife edge and knowing at any unexpected moment, Dean will let it slide right through him. Cut him to ribbons.

Sam's phone chimes. 

It's Jerry.

Dean quirks an eyebrow. "You made a friend already? What did I miss, Rime's Speed Date Night?"

"It's just someone from school."

Dean seems to accept this. He swallows half the pill and places the other half, like a shotgun pellet, on the nightstand. Then he admits, "My god, it's cold in here."

Sam's phone chimes again. 

And again. 

And again.

Dean has that look on his face again, like he has a smartass joke it would have been better to swallow. This time, he fails.

"So… Was Jess your only girlfriend, or was this like, a Playboy Mansion-type situation?" Dean asks.

"Don't."

"Sorry."

"Fuck!" Sam shouts, in tandem with the fifth chime. Then he puts his phone on silent.

When he looks up, Dean's popping Sam's shirt over his head. It falls over his chest and pools gray at his belly, and a sharp strange feeling lances up Sam's spine. It washes warm over his shoulders, and Sam twists in his jeans.

Then it's just Dean wearing a shirt.

So maybe Sam's more exhausted than he thought. 

Maybe he should just go to sleep.

"Do you think it'd be better?" Dean asks, as he flees back under the covers of the better bed. He sounds tentative, which makes Sam wish he had any idea what Dean was talking about.

"Do I think what would be better?"

Sam slides his laptop between the bed and the window and climbs into bed as well.

"If you were back at school, and you had people, like, _around_ , who missed her, too. Do you think that'd, you know... Would that help you?"

Sam had assumed Dean's act would extend to his dialogue--that what happened in Rime last night would stay strictly within last night. That's Dean's personal style, after all. But here he is, bringing Sam's shit up. 

Sam's heart feels like Dean and Jess just T-boned each other at an aortic intersection. If Sam has to look Dean in the eyes right now, he will probably cry. He hasn't yet, about Jess--not really. But that streak isn't going to break tonight.

Yes, he should just go to sleep.

"I think I'd be pissed at everyone around me, no matter where I was. Because they're here, and she's not," Sam says instead. The honesty is not freeing.

Dean doesn't say anything.

On the windowsill, Sam's phone glows silently. Jerry, Take 6.

He should just go to sleep. He's told himself this enough times; it almost feels like a good idea.

He should just go to sleep.

"You got a pen?” Dean asks.

Sam tilts his head noncommittally at the nightstand between the beds, and the ballpoint diagonal across the motel stationery. He doesn’t open his eyes, but he hears Dean’s watch smack the tabletop. It’s so quiet he can hear Dean’s fingers scrape over the paper and the bedsprings whimper as Dean cranes into the light.

Dean chuckles.

When Sam looks over, Dean is squinting at the pad of paper as he plays with its angle with respect to the light. 

“I wouldn’t get too cozy with your blanky there, Sammy,” Dean says. “Whoever had this room before us had a grand old time, if I’m seeing this right. Kinky bastard. Shit artist, but you can get the gist. Look--”

“I don’t want to know,” says Sam, and closes his eyes again.

“Suit yourself,” Dean replies. He still tears off the first page of the stationery pad and floats it over Sam's chest. Sam lets it lie, sight unseen. But now all he can hear is the skritch of the pen, or the continued warp of the bedsprings any time Dean moves. Even Dean's breathing is too loud.

“Can this wait until morning, Picasso?”

“More Leonardo.”

“ _Last Supper_?”

“God, I hope not.” 

“If you’re gonna try to draw the Mona Lisa naked, I’m out of here.”

“What?”

“You’re the one who said Leonardo,” says Sam.

“DiCaprio? _Catch Me If You Can_? Oh, never mind.”

Dean takes a deep breath and lurches off the bed, as if propelled by the force of his exhalation. It sounds sort of like he doesn't stop until his palms smack the wall; there's a soft thud as he slides down the wall to the ground. Sam hears rustling as Dean eviscerates the duffel, then paper when he fishes out John's journal.

"Okay, seriously. Does this need to happen right now? I'm trying to sleep."

"It says it's open 24 hours," says Dean, and holds up a business card. From the bed, it just looks like a black blotch. 

"Credit card offer. Got a couple promo codes," Dean clarifies. "They might work."

“And those... are in the journal?”

“Everything Dad knows about every evil thing,” Dean confirms, and starts humming hold music.

"And this didn't come up 'til just now because…?"

Dean shrugs. "Wasn't thinking straight."

Sam rubs his eyes, pushes his fingers through his hair. He tries not to be angry about this. "You're making this teamwork thing really hard; you realize that, right? I can't tag in and cover your ass if I never know where you left off."

Dean mutters something too low to hear, but Sam thinks part of it sounds suspiciously like "at least I" and "not just fucking coordinates."

So much for sleep.

Sam sits up.

"I found a spell we might be able to use, by the way," drowning out the tinny bleating of the hold music. " _I_ thought I should wait and loop you in before I went off and did anything with it." 

He tells Dean about the fishnet fae--serendipitous will o' the wisps of good fortune and warm fuzzy. "Remember the glimmer I thought I saw?" Sam asks.

"I didn't see anything on the body," says Dean. "I thought you said these things were invisible."

"Are you saying I didn't see anything?"

"I'm just trying to keep the facts straight. You've been seeing a lot of things."

"This wasn't a vision," Sam objects tersely. "It was a _glimmer._ And I think Mackie was on the same track. It could make sense--it's usually kind of a Japanese thing, though there's been sightings all across the US. I looked in the journal, and apparently, Dad found some in Seattle. Anyway, I looked up a map and we're sort of near Camp Minidoka, so it'd make sense if--"

"Yeah, that makes sense," Dean nods.

"It does?"

Dean rolls his eyes. "Come on. Who hasn't seen _Bad Day at Black Rock_? I know what internment camps are."

Sam wishes Dean could have told him that three hours ago. He sighs. "My bad, then. Sorry," he says. "Long story short, I found a spell that's supposed to let you see like, the heat signatures stuff like that leaves behind. So we'll be able to track it, and see what it's been up to."

"Is murder usually a thing they 'get up to'?" Dean asks.

Sam frowns. "That's the thing. They're supposed to like, give you lucky pennies. High end of the spectrum, the case Dad worked had some that were helping these guys...catch fish? Like, they try to grant dreams. Sort of. Like I said, Dad just wrote 'more fish.'"

"Classic, cryptic Dad." Dean chuffs. "But okay, so--no free yachts, but maybe an extra twenty-pounder jumps in the boat. Except ours just killed a guy." 

"Right."

"Maybe Mackie wished for an orgasm so mindblowing he stroked out."

"The serendipity could have misinterpreted what he was doing--what he was dreaming of."

"Maybe Mackie wanted to die," Dean counters.

Sam tenses involuntarily. "Why would you say that?"

Dean just shrugs. "No reason. I just figure everyone who's ever been to Rime probably thinks it at least once. Also, this hold music is a fucking desecration--Muzak meets Zep. See, that'd be another reason right there. I could probably name another fifty, easy."

Sam doesn't think any of this is all that funny. "We can keep brainstorming tomorrow. But we should at least go down and rule out a ghost for sure."

"We could," Dean agrees, but he couldn't sound more noncommittal. And whether it's just crumbs in the toaster or it's the house burning down, Sam hears alarm bells. Everything's fine and then it's not; then it's wound too tight, and everything is by the book--everything is training wheels on. Then it's worse. Then everything's fine again, except maybe it's just another kind of meltdown. Sam's not sure what to think. He can't function without some rhyme and reason. 

Sam's about to call Dean out, but at that moment the creditors take Dean off hold. 

The moment passes.

Ten minutes later, Dean hangs up with the promise of two credit cards in a PO box in Colorado sometime next week. It's a relief, a huge one, but it's still too far off to feel like it.

"Congratulations," Sam tells him. "Now, ghost?"

"Ghost," Dean acquiesces. But pain drags at the creases near his eyes. When he tests his knee, a shudder scatters up his body like a stone, bangs his teeth into a grimace. Everything is not fine again.

"I can go alone," Sam suggests. "The room's already salted. And it's just a ghost."

"If it's a ghost," Dean corrects. "Which we have zero proof of--which is even less than the speck we have for this fairy thing. Though I guess I wouldn't be surprised if the motel guy were stashing bodies. He does kind of seem like the type."

"If it's not a ghost, then it's even less of a risk; it's just a serendipity. I promise not to dream, jack off, or act extra wistful in its presence. I'm way more prepared than Mackie was."

Dean still doesn't look convinced, but this is idiotic. They've never been joined at the hip and Sam's not sure why they'd have to start now.

“What would your game plan be? I mean, if you were working this alone--what would you do? What has Dad ever done?" Sam asks, seeking hypocrisy.

"Do you wanna hear about Dad, or me?" asks Dean.

Sam rakes his teeth against his lips. It hadn't entirely occurred to him that the answers would be different, and Dean knows it. 

"I just wanna know where you're at with this," he says.

He's about to apologize, but the first word out of his mouth is "Dad," anyway, and this strips Sam of any desire to apologize for anything. It's just the same old shit--like the last four years never happened. Dad this, Dad that. Yadda yadda. As expected.

But then Dean says, "This case, though? Time was, Dad would've walked away. Pretended he's just another guy and gotten the hell out.”

"That doesn't sound like Dad," Sam responds immediately.

Dean looks like he’s about to develop a sudden, erotic fascination with the ironing board. He keeps stealing glances at it, away from Sam. There’s something about the way his bones settle in the room that make it feel like he’s about to pounce on something. But he says, "Do you honestly think he'd have made it home all those times, if that weren't true?"

"But why--"

"He had us. He had to make sure he came back."

“But how do you just walk out like that?” Sam asks, feeling stupid. 

"I’ve never figured that out.”

Dean's gaze twitches sharply back to Sam’s own, holds there. It makes Sam feel like he’s not allowed to blink, Dean looking at him like that. He adds, “Maybe someday."

"Seriously? That's your takeaway--be more like Dad? You realize he's the asshole in your anecdote, right? And what makes you think he was going anything for our benefit? He never even called me back, Dean. You were _dying._ "

"And you took care of that. We're not kids anymore. It's different now."

"Which you seemed pretty pissed about last night. So if you're gonna keep spouting bull, at least pick a party line and stick to it. I'm tired of this whiplash shit, Dean. I just am. What the fuck is your problem right now?"

 _What isn't?_ is probably the better question, but Dean's better at leveling with a shitty situation and graciously accepting its terms than anyone Sam knows. Sam fucking hates it, and he's fucking grateful for it, and he needs to know what happened to it. Because it's not just pain. It's not just drugs. Sam knows better than to believe in anything so simple.

Dean speaks. He is round-eyed, big green wide-open doors to his soul, which is a panic room. And honestly, Sam has no idea where this came from. It's not the pressure point he'd been expecting.

"It's different now," Dean repeats. And he doesn't hold back. He's meltwater effluent: "I don't think he thinks he's coming back from this; I think he's letting us go, Sam. He thinks we're gonna need to know how to do this without him, and that's why we have to find him first, and I just--you, Dad, even me. I just want things more like they used to be. I just--"

"Whoa. Hey, uh. Hang on a sec," Sam says softly, because Dean might be getting a little ahead of himself. Sam doesn't even bristle at Dean's ever-faithful nostalgia. Suddenly they're right back where they were last night--where if Sam moves wrong, Dean gets hurt. Which means Dean gets hurt.

"If you don't believe me, whatever," says Dean. "But you weren't around to watch that dial turn, man. Maybe it's always been about the demon--and fucking sue him, Sam, of course it was--but not like _this._ I didn't even know if he was alive until we stepped into that fucking motel in Jericho. So maybe fuck the job. Fuck the demon. And fuck Rime."

"You don't actually mean that."

Dean breathes deep. "But I can't do that to you again."

"Do what?" Sam asks, exasperated. 

"Leave," Dean says.

"Die," Dean says. 

"Not after Jess," Dean says.

"Not after Jess?" Sam questions. "Dean, you're not making any sense. One thing at a time."

"You said you wanted to know where I was at."

It's just--it's a lot. Sam says ghost, Dean says Dad, and suddenly they're talking about Jess. Suddenly they're talking about everything, in an asphyxiating chain of association. When Dean starts talking like he's only around because he can't let John die, and because Jess already has, it sours Sam's stomach. Dean makes it sound like he thinks the main problem with him dying is that it might make Sam fucking _sad._

Dean has his boots on now. When he makes it off the floor, he goes for his jacket and walks straight past Sam to the door.

"Where are you going now?" Sam asks, in an exhausted flatline.

Dean puckers his lips. "I'm kinda feeling poker."

Fucking _seriously?_ Sam thinks. "There's no way you're good for that." 

"You're the one who wanted to go ghost-hunting," Dean points out. "Give me the keys."

This is how Sam ends up standing outside of Rime's Bar None, keys unrelinquished. It is bar none the last thing Sam wanted for his midnight.

“We need to talk,” Sam says. 

Dean's trying to figure out how to open the bar’s heavy door without inviting too much torque, resolutely blocking Sam’s intervention. "That's all we've managed to actually do so far," he grunts.

"We need to keep talking, then. There's too much, and it's getting dangerous--whether there's a hunt or not. It's fucking desperate."

Sam breaks off when he hears a noise off to his right. It’s dark, light impaired by the cluster of insectile corpses gathered at the bottom of its bulb, but Sam sees them now. Or he sees a woman’s legs, bare and lily white--even in the cold--skirt hiked up to her hips. Her ankles clasp each other like a bracelet, encircling a man’s round butt. The man's pressed against the bar's outer wall, head knocked back and mouth gaping pleasurably.

Sam quickly looks away.

Dean finally gets an elbow over the door and pries it open, wedging his body through. He nearly smacks Sam off the step in the process.

Then Dean disappears into the bar. 

As Sam lets the door sucker shut after him, he tries not to think about the bills clasped tight in the girl’s hand, the other looped tight around the man’s neck. The way she and her hand bobbed as he thrust into her, money caressing his back.

Sam tries.


	7. Chapter 7

There’s no real way to describe how Dean plays poker.

Maybe it says something that they’re dealing the river before Sam even catches up with him, but Sam’s not sure ‘quickly’ is an actual strategy.

Dean doesn’t look out of place. But for the ice melting in his hair, he could pass for one of the guys, lit and costumed so he sinks in seamlessly, mise en scène. The whole bar looks like a Coors Lite ad. In it, Dean and the other men play loose, bills crumpled; beers amber; hands at ease. Focus elsewhere, or trained to appear so. They all know how this goes: Every night someone walks away with the pot, and every night they’ll be back here, handing it off to someone new. Dean gets his pocket aces cracked and someone makes a comment about the new guy supplying the table.

God, Sam hopes not.

“It’s rude to stare,” a voice informs him. 

Sam jumps. It’s their motel guy, his cards pressed dutifully to his scarf so Sam, behind him, can't sneak a peek. He’s got his scarf wound all the way up around his neck, even though he’s turning beet red in the warm bar. He looks like he thinks Sam's about to climb over his shoulders and steal his cards away. It's the same look he'd given them when they checked in; when Sam asked for the Ethernet cord; when Sam came down for breakfast; when he'd sought out the microwave. Apparently Sam's just inherently suspicious. Though their first meeting--3AM, him and Dean sopping wet and only mostly wiped of blood, their money pooling muddy on the counter--probably hadn't done them any favors.

“Sorry,” Sam says.

"Stand somewhere else."

"Uh. Okay."

Dean falls on the half of the table actively ignoring Sam through all this, untouchably infuriating in a way that only Dean has ever managed. Play darts around the table another time and Dean loses another hand.

Well, fuck him, Sam thinks.

“Table stakes,” Motel Guy tries again, looking somewhere beyond Sam’s shoulder as he speaks. “Ante’s five if you want in. Don't cheat.”

Sam mumbles some niceties and sits. “Do you, um, have change for a twenty?” he asks.

There’s a ripple of laughter from eleven to three o’clock at the table (not Dean). Someone jibes, “Oh, we got a highrolla in the house!” but Sam gets his change and his cards. By the time he even looks at them Dean’s folded.

Again, ‘quickly’--not a term of art, but plenty descriptive. Dean folds on the next three hands, too, and all Sam can think is, Now they’re out $20. Dean’s basically giving it away. Sam knows that’s the game, and that Dean plays a long-ass game (it’s called “flow,” or so Dean says); but the way Dean plays poker is what Sam hates about poker. 

Meanwhile Sam’s up about $3, and mostly impressed he’s stayed in this long. Compared to playing micro-stakes on his dorm floor, a $5 ante is a little terrifying; he only had the one $20, and he’s pretty sure that collectively, he and Dean are about his $3 away from not eating tomorrow. From not eating until they get to Colorado, and at this rate they're going to have to walk.

This is what compels him to call, on a 2-7 off-suit. He really, really doesn’t want to lose the ante.

The trouble begins when everyone else calls, too. 

Dean raises. So does the guy after him. So does Sam. 

By the turn, Sam’s essentially all in, and there’s still nothing on the table for him. 

Dean raises. 

The next guy folds. 

Fold, fold, fold. 

7 in the river, and Sam forgets about his poker face and breathes a sigh of relief. Dean has a 2-Jack, and the only other guy left in had pocket 3s. Nothing on the table.

Pocket Three gives Sam a respectful nod as he pushes the pot over. “Ballsy,” he says.

“Beginner’s luck,” says Dean, but he passes his beer down the table towards Sam. It’s full.

“Should calm you down some,” says Dean, and he winks.

Sam wants to punch Dean in his stupid winking face, but he takes the beer and he does feel calmer. He’s actually a much better poker player when he’s got some wiggle room; and even if most of that wiggle room is technically Dean’s money, it feels less like they’re courting disaster--even if "bet like idiots against each other" isn’t typically a strategy that works more than once.

And it's not Dean's usual. Which is why, as far as Sam’s concerned, Dean’s play defies description. The way the old wives’ tales go, you’re supposed to be able to know a man by the game he plays. Sam’s seen Dean play plenty, but that’s not the man he is.

Dean doesn’t believe that people have tells, for one. He’s gone as far as saying that unless someone’s got a gun on him, tells are bullshit. And Dean almost never lies about his hand in card games. He calls when he starts decent; raises when his odds are good. He’ll hustle pool until someone’s ready to run him through with a cue, but Dean almost always plays the world’s straightest game of poker. 

Just as Sam's beginning to feel like he has a handle on the pulse of the game, he watches Dean's face shift into something completely indiscernible. Like if you'd smiled welcome with a mouthful of firecrackers.

"Look who we found," says a voice behind him. 

Sam feels a hand plop down on his shoulder and for a wrinkle of time he imagines that it's Jerry, 703 texts and a roadtrip away from his morning's chem midterm.

"Roy!" Dean beams, firecrackers and teeth. "What the fuck are you doing here?" 

"Well, after your call, we figured we should come say hi," Roy explains. He removes his hand from Sam's shoulder and shoves it back in his jacket pocket. There's another body standing behind Sam, he can feel it. But there's no danger here; this isn't about him. Roy, apparently, just touches people.

"Then I guess some beers are in order," says Dean, and when he excuses himself from the table, chips abandoned, Sam bites his tongue and follows suit. And they whiplash back to some separate set of circumstances.

 

\--

 

Dean doesn't actually buy their beers. He hands a whiskey to Sam, and holds one for himself, and waits for Roy and the other guy to treat themselves. (A vodka well and a hard cider.)

"This is my brother," says Dean, and Roy toasts Sam.

"Roy," says Roy, gesturing at himself with his glass. "And this is Walt."

"So what are you doing here?" Dean asks again. He flinches as he hikes himself onto the bar stool.

Walt looks Dean from head to toe, says, snidely, "Why is it always something with you, Winchester?"

Sam's jaw goes tight, but Roy just talks over them. "Like I said, we got your call. Figured we'd come say hi. Catch up, shoot the shit--you know."

Whatever Walt sees in Dean, it's clear he has no idea what Dean looked like twenty-four hours ago, or even two. By Sam's metrics, Dean's doing great. It's like he's rekindled that burning obstinance that keeps him anchored--like neither the fog of drugs nor the shitstorm that is the rest of their lives has the power to beat it out of him right now. So maybe poker wasn't a terrible idea. Dean's in his element, knows what he's doing.

"So what are you doing here?" Dean asks again. No teeth, no firecrackers--at least, not visibly. In its repetition, the question warps from genial to deadly.

Which is also Dean's element.

It's clear the three of them aren't friends; what perplexes Sam though, is this resilient charade that suggests that they think they should pretend to be. Was it just sequelae of, at some point in the past, having to put your life in the hands of someone you hated? Was this what they thought professionalism looked like? What was the point?

Wordlessly, Dean switches Sam's whiskey for his own full one. He drinks what's left under Sam's ice.

"Timeshare in southern Idaho?" Dean suggests helpfully, because Roy hasn't answered his question yet.

"Sam, I heard you were at Stanford. I always thought something like that would be nice," Roy says instead, and sounds completely honest. "Good for you, man."

Roy's possibly the only person who ever told Sam that. The sheer cognitive dissonance keeps Sam silent, and he swigs Dean's whiskey instead. He feels lightheaded. He'd sort of expected to play Walt's role in this meet-n-greet--that is, barroom decor.

"Of course, we've heard some other things, too. Strange shadows; dead bodies," Walt adds, also outgrowing his decorative status. 

Sam thinks those are big words for someone nursing a cider.

Dean takes Walt more seriously.

"Weird," says Dean. "Your un-curiosity was always one of my favorite things about you."

They're all seated at the bar, Walt Roy Dean Sam, so it's not like Sam had great sightlines on the two to start with, but by some magic of comportment, now Dean feels like a barricade. 

"Easy." Roy waggles his hands. "We were just in Twin Falls; it wasn't no ride. And Mackie was a friend--that's all."

"Did you know Sara, then?" Sam asks, which is his own attempt at diffusion. The ripple of Dean's shoulders suggests he'd forgotten, yet again, that there was any Sara at all. It shakes him off his offensive.

Roy raises his eyebrows. "Sara? I mean, sure. Mackie's sister's a Sara."

Fuck. His sister. Of course.

"Have you told her what happened?" asks Sam.

Roy thinks about this, as though that step hadn't occurred to him. "Never could get her to give me her number."

"I wouldn't worry about Sara, though," says Walt. "She's her own breed."

"Hot, though," Roy says defensively.

"Well! That's an enigma wrapped up in--" Dean searches. "--you. Great talk, guys. I think we're done here."

Roy looks at his watch. "There's still time for a few games, right?"

Sam expects a venomous retort from Dean; Dean, who made such a show of not buying their drinks; who doesn't trust them; doesn't like them; and maybe wants to kill them. It's the only thing that makes sense.

But Dean accepts. He and Roy clink their fucking glasses together. And when they end up at a low table, swallowing other men's smoke and rimming the pot with pin after empty pint, there's none of that vitriol, which had been so potent only moments ago. 

Roy deals, and when Dean takes his cards, he _wants_ them. Sam can see the glisten in his eyes. The last time Sam can even remember Dean wanting something that badly was Dean begging him to stay. To not get on that bus.

Sam tries not to think about that comparison too much. Tries not to just shout, YOU DO NOT MAKE SENSE. THIS DOES NOT MAKE SENSE.

Because honestly, Sam doesn't get it. He doesn't get the dance of this game they've got going--the hate-tolerate of whatever Roy, Dean, and Walt have on each other. Sam knows you're supposed to leave your rivalries on the field, but the field generally doesn't extend all the way to the bar, only to stop twelve feet over. And he doesn't think people actually do that--the sportsmanship thing. How you feel about someone is how you feel. You don't just turn that on and off.

But what does Sam know. At this point he's lost track of how many of the empties are his own. Dean keeps sending his beer around to Sam every time Sam wins anything. He feels 80% water, 300% beer.

And Sam gets that Dean actually can’t drink them right now; and he gets that it’s suspicious, in this crowd, to voluntarily refuse to drink at the table. Whereas if Dean loses all his beers to Sam, it’s funny as hell. Or so Sam’s gathered, since every time Dean gives one up, the table erupts with laughter and Sam is forced to toast it.

Sam gets all that. In some context, this is probably strategic. But it's a stupid fucking strategy.

He feels like he’s gonna hurl, and honestly, he’s pissed about that, too. He’s gonna hurl, and they all _like_ Dean for that. And if not for that, particularly, it obviously doesn’t hurt.

“One hundred,” Dean raises.

Sam’s stomach does a pirouette. How’d the stakes get so high? There’s only six guys in this game. (The four of them and their two new best friends, who loudly appreciated them as open carry's poster children. Fuck Idaho.)

Sam folds. Fuck the game and the bar and its beer and mostly, fuck his brother.

Dean’s got the pocket aces, but the river has a three, and Roy has three of a kind.

Things don't have to make sense.

 

\--

 

Fuck his brother.

 

\--

 

“I mean, cracked aces, twice in one night?” Dean says, as he pays his bar tab with most everything Sam has left. “That’s like, shattered mirror, black-cat-in-a-cemetery levels of--”

“I don’t want to talk to you,” Sam hisses. “And hurry up. I need to go throw up on your bed.”

“Hey, it’s your bed, too.”

“Has anyone ever told you you’re bad at poker?”

“I’m not bad at poker,” Dean says, which sounds deceptively simple--missing a witticism.

Sam’s staring at a wet patch on the floor, but he catches a movement in his peripheral vision and braces himself for a stomach-churning clap on the back. It doesn’t come--instead, Dean rubs a quick figure eight across his shoulder blades, ineffective but thoughtful.

“I'm sorry,” says Dean.

“For what?” Sam asks.

“Seriously?”

“Okay. For how much?” Sam revises.

Dean doesn’t answer immediately, and the clatter of the bar around them encroaches on Sam’s attention so fully he forgets he’s waiting for an answer. It’s all very loud, very bright, very warm.

“I don’t know,” Dean says finally, and his hand leaves Sam’s back. “Can you walk in a straight line, Flounder?” 

“What?”

“Oh come on. _Animal House_? Once we get to a town with a video store, I'm gonna need to take emergency measures. This is like, the third movie tonight."

“No, I mean--what do you mean, ‘I don’t’--”

Then Dean’s pushing him toward the door, and Sam’s trying not to run over his own feet. Dean’s talking about cracked aces again, and black cat bad luck. Statistically, it shouldn’t happen--not to him, not in a single night at Bar None.

It’s not a bad beat; even in Sam’s dim recollection of Dad’s games with Caleb’s buddies, or Uncle Bobby--hunter games, where the pot’s always notoriously small--no one’d bat an eye. A couple hundred dollars? At Stanford it might even have been funny: Sam can picture Jerry laughing-crying as he ponies up. A couple hundred dollars is one month of working desk at the library, not even part-time; and if it’s all for bar money, well. Jerry’s got that midterm coming up, anyway. 

But he and Dean won't have a dorm to retreat to, paid up through the semester. Their week's almost up. So for two more nights, they have a motel room. They have what’s left in the gas tank, and they have whatever singles Sam crammed back in his pockets. That couple hundred dollars was everything. 

Minus the seven flat pastries Sam stole. They have those, too.

And that kind of inventory is not black cat bad luck. It’s just what happens when your apartment burns down, and your girlfriend with it. When there are damage fees, because you haven't paid enough already, haven't lost everything. It's what happens you find some kids, and your brother fries his heart to save them. And you and him, you gurney through those double doors, and there it all goes, because how much does it cost to keep your brother alive? To be told he’s only got a month? To let him keep the bed you don’t want to see him in, and the nurses he claims aren’t hot. Your shitty insurance goes in for 20%, your fake credit cards max out on the rest, your bullshit deductible. (If education’s such a racket, why does four months of law school cost the same as four days of dying?) ER fee gets waived, at least--like getting peanuts free when you sit down at a burger joint, except a hospital bed’s costs closer to a pound of flesh than a pound of beef. Reaper discount on the after-care, except for that one trip to the cardiologist. 

But maybe there are some hidden fees there, too, because someone has to pay when you drive two thousand miles to avoid Nebraska--when you drink to forget it--when you hunt to absolve it. In Idaho, bax'aan are more bovine than equine, no matter what the lore claims. Remember that, or you’ll tear something spinning out of the way of their longhorn offensives. Blow your knee out. Or your brother will. Maybe you’re not different people anymore. If you can't understand him, it's not like you're doing any better figuring out yourself, you’re both screwed, after all, because there’s already a hospital somewhere in Missouri waiting on a monthly payment you knew you’d never make. HMOs are stingier than genies, and you, Sam Winchester--you can raise the dead, harness the power of small gods, and you’ll still never get three wishes. And now you’re out of backup plans, because no one stays lucky. 

Sam faceplants into Dean’s neck when they stop suddenly, waylaid by--ah, yes. The door. The Bar None door.

Dean’s still rambling on about poker. 

“I mean, tactically, we’re doing great. Long game, they’ll let us in tomorrow, no problem. Then we can really work ‘em.”

“Don’t have that long,” Sam slurs. “Now we gotta-- We got a day to kill this thing, and fix you, and find Dad, and--”

“It’s not that bad.”

“We’re working, and you got me _drunk_ \--”

Sam can't pull the door open. Dean says, "Push," but Sam keeps pulling. He just needs to pull harder, like Dean and that river and the bax'aan bearing down on them. He needs to pull--pull everything upward, pull Dean upward, pull his head out from under, pull their knife from that monster's neck. Sam just needs to pull. 

"It says push, goddamn it," Dean insists. But he would, wouldn't he. 

Dean would.

Dean shoves him hard against the door from behind. Sam's hands fly up to break his fall and the door pushes open.

“You got me _drunk_ ,” Sam repeats, just in case Dean couldn’t tell. 

“I know, Sammy,” says Dean. “That was stupid of me. It was really stupid. I know."

"Are those _bugs?_ "

Sam had expected to feel clearer once they got outside and the temperature froze the haze out, but there are little dark things sitting in the light above them. He stares until the bulb haloes, and Sam can see the reddish burn of it even under his lids.

"Those are _bugs_ , Dean--"

Sam grabs Dean's shoulder to steady himself as he goes up on tiptoe. He wants--he needs--to see the bugs in full, every body segment articulated, each hairy leg a dead, translucent exoskeleton. He needs to see their timelessness.

Dean gasps. "Sam, stop--"

Sam bears down; he can almost see them.

"Sam, I can't-- Sam, fuck--"

The acuity of the dead bugs wheels away as Dean collapses beneath him, and with Dean goes any semblance of balance Sam has. 

There's too much glass on the ground for us to fall, Sam thinks. _We can't._ Or they shouldn't, but they will. As usual. 

There's shards, there's glitter, and full half bottles sticking up like trench spikes in the snow. All of which is less forgiving against skin than sole. Still, that wouldn't kill them, Sam thinks; it's fine. Maybe it'd hurt, but it's bar trash. It's nothing. Of course, arteries have a stupid way of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

A few days ago Sam killed a bax'aan with nothing but a knife and necessity, after all. And that bax'aan didn't even need to touch Dean to fuck him over.

That's the rub: The difference between life and death is just a bunch of little, tiny--

Sam coughs as Dean forcefully redirects their passage downward, and Sam's lungs slam against the wall. The bar wall.

That woman, Sam thinks. The woman from before, fucking that john right here. How'd she get home without shoes, and all this glass on the ground?

Dean's breath stutters against Sam's chest, and he moans. Are you okay? Sam asks, or means to ask, or would like to make his tongue ask. But maybe he doesn't, because Dean doesn't answer--just leans hard into Sam, and Sam's not even sure if Dean's keeping him upright, pinning him against the wall the way he is, or if Sam's the one keeping Dean up. 

He feels each syncopated staccato as Dean's chest balloons with air, releases it, balloons again. Dean is pleasantly warm against him.

"Why do I always forget that drunk-you isn't fun?" Dean muffles into Sam's shoulder. Sam feels cold air slither between them as Dean begins to push away. Suddenly Sam panics, thinks _don't go_. Grabs him back. Fists the hem of Dean's jacket in one hand, its collar in the other. Holds Dean close and tight.

"Sam," says Dean. "That's not helping."

"Who are we even supposed to be helping with this job?"

"Sam."

Beyond them, the bar door swings open--Motel Guy. Motel Guy peers into the dimness, eyes slit against the wind and errant would-be snow, and he and Sam lock eyes. Motel Guy sees them, sees the both of them then, and quickly snaps away. Keeps his head down and gets walking.

Sam wonders if that's what he'd looked like, to that woman. If she'd opened her eyes and looked up and saw Sam looking away.

He wonders about her shoes.

Sam feels pressure against his thigh as Dean tries to extricate himself again--and does a poor job of it. Sam feels the cold and that woman and the clatter of poker chips, the buzz of the light above and Dean, Dean's warmth, Dean's weight, the dance of his lungs and maybe even his heart--and then he feels everything at once, and then Dean's hands ratcheting around Sam's shoulders as Sam's dick bulges against him.

 _Kiss me,_ Sam thinks. Wild abandon, he thinks. That's what this needs. Kiss me kiss me. 

He's never needed that before, wanted it, but now he wonders why not. Now his desire is clear and urgent. Sam's drunk as hell, that much he knows, and everything's too slow too dim too buggy for wild abandon. (There's no bugs out now, it's winter--they've been skeletons in the light bulb for months, or years--)

But is it wild?

To not want to feel abandoned.

Disgust or delight: Those are basically Dean's options now, right?

 _Kiss me_ , Sam thinks. _Don't leave me._

He imagines a thousand fractured details--the chafe of Dean's fingers against buttons, the sibilance of his own belt as it comes undone. And Jess with her hands at his throat, Jess in borrowed lingerie, because the borrowing was thrilling to her--it's a thing, she'd said (and how would Dean's hands feel on his cock? Thrilling? Cold as shit right now, probably, but maybe they're not here, maybe they're at home, wherever that is, maybe-- That woman from Rime (girl? woman) Rime without her shoes, with a hundred dollars in her hand because she doesn't trust it anywhere else. Mackie, blue and very very dead.)

He imagines Dean, tearing himself away from Sam, away from Sam forever. Glass in their palms as they crawl deeper into hell, separate and alone.

Chalk dust settling over Jess's breasts under the board in that study room, that one time, during midterms. 

River silt flaky in Dean's hair. Air expanding his lungs (for now, for now, if only for now)

If Sam drops his pants he wonders if he'll see it--his blood and all its nightmare-weaving monstrosity, or fate coursing through his goddamn penis and _fuck_ that should leave him cold--cold for life--but Dean pats his bulge and Sam's breath hitches. Everything feels like a knife's edge and then Dean, in neither disgust nor delight, says, "Dude, you have no idea how jealous I am right now. I mean, how much have you had to drink? And you're still--fucking--you can still--" 

Dean grunts as he jerks Sam's waistband forward and down. 

There's a blast of cold air--cold cold cold!--and Sam yelps. 

Dean lets go of Sam's pants, Sam feels his unfondled erection wither, freeze away. Everything aches. It's fast and horrible.

Sam shudders. He's gonna throw up. That's not what he wanted. That's not at all--

_You're leaving me-- out in the--_

"You're a bastard," he croaks.

Dean just laughs. One swift, sharp "ha!" and then he's done. "You're fucking wasted, man," he says. "And you're going to hate me so much for the hangover tomorrow. I can't give you another reason."

"But I hate you right _now._ "

Dean doesn't reply, just staggers his way through their tundra of glass and motions for Sam to follow. "Be careful, drunchie. You slip and fall, and I'll tell you right now, I can't carry you. Jesus, Sam! Stop that, I'm serious--"

Sam scowls dramatically, marches as deliberately as possible through the slush and onto the main road. He'd dance if he knew how, just to spite Dean. But he's feeling significantly more sober and significantly less warm, so he pulls his jacket tighter and opts to storm back to the motel as quickly as possible.

Given the way Dean keeps dragging him back onto the road, Sam's a lot more cold than sober.

The third time, Sam doesn't feel Dean grab him at all--just hears his voice from somewhere behind him. "Sam, wrong way," he says. But he doesn't divulge which was the right one. Sam has no choice but to wait for him.

"So what'd you do when you turned twenty-one?" Dean asks when he catches up. He sounds out of breath. "I mean, alcohol-wise. Did the cheerleading squad have to pyramid-carry you back home afterward?"

"Why does it matter?"

"Just--slow down and answer the question. Hey, I said slow--"

"I was studying for finals."

Dean chuffs, then coughs. "And your friends just let you? That's not what good friends do."

"Fuck you. I told them my brother gave me my first beer when I was eleven, so being legal hardly mattered. Which they understood, because they were good fucking friends."

"Whatever, man," Dean pants. 

Silence falls snowy between them. 

The next thing Sam knows, their motel is smack in front of them. Sam starts mechanically for the stairs, only to stop four steps up to turn to Dean, still at the bottom.

Dean's bent forward, arm braced against his leg as he sucks in air. He massages his other knee for reasons Sam recalls and then forgets and then recalls again. But for now Sam's forgotten, so he asks, "Are you okay?"

Dean rights himself. "Focus on the stairs. And I'm fucking serious, don't slip; pay attention."

They take one step at a time.

"Are you okay?" Sam asks again.

"I can't believe even drunk-you keeps asking me that."

But Dean's the one who trips on the last step. Sam grabs his arm just before he slides a hell of a long way down.

"Holy crap--" Sam gasps.

This is how they die. 

It's not going to be some demon with some big plan. No, they're gonna take flight from stairs and they're not going to be ready for that.

Dean sighs as he regains his footing. Apparently he hadn't felt the same epiphany, because all he says is, "For the record, it was whiskey, not beer, and eleven-year old you said you wanted it."

Sam frowns. "Right, 'cause you're so into giving me what I want."

"My god, Sam. You're worse than a girl the morning after."

He bears down close, fingers brushing skin before they find Sam's pocket. They follow the cut of Sam's hip down to his pelvis, curling through the denim of Sam's jeans. Sam's breath catches, but Dean's just there to snake the keys. He exits quickly in favor of fiddling with the lock on their door.

Dean licks the frost from his lips as the door finally gives way.

"So are you going to kiss me at least?" Sam asks. His tongue feels thick.

Dean just pushes Sam into the room and onto their bed. There’s a cold flash across his ribs as Dean drags the laptop out from under him, making his shirt ride up. He feels hits boots pulled from him. Then Dean folds the coverlet over him, slippery and pungent with smoke.

That feels like a No. But Sam can't even see straight, can't tell what Dean's face is doing, what he's thinking.

"Well, are you?" he asks. Sam's not sure he can hear himself.

"Ask me when you're sober. If you remember any of this, then we'll talk," says Dean, which sounds suspiciously like a "Fuck no." Sam can't remember ten minutes ago, barely knows what minutes are. He's not going to remember anything tomorrow.

"I'm asking you now. I _have_ to." 

Suddenly Sam lashes out, makes a grab for whatever he can find of Dean. Dean must not have expected Sam's agility, because Sam's fingers close around thin cord--necklace, Sam thinks, amulet--and he yanks Dean toward him before Dean can even think about making his escape. Dean swears, and Sam hears the back end of him crash into the nightstand as he loses his footing. Dean grabs at Sam's back to anchor himself. His head presses against Sam's, but still he slides, until they end up cheek to cheek.

"I don't see how strangling me helps anybody," he says. But he breathes deep of Sam, grips harder. With every breath his lips feather against Sam's cheek. Not a kiss, not really, but it feels good.

"Sam, you gotta let me go."

When Sam doesn't, Dean croaks, "Seriously. I can't--"

He can't find his footing; he's hurt. Can't escape the necklace--Sam's holding its cord too tight to his own chest.

Sam lets go. Dean doesn't. He holds Sam, just a moment longer. Longer than he needed to, longer than he should have. He turns into Sam's cheek.

(Was that a kiss?)

Then Dean disappears. Sam holds his breath. 

Dean pulls the rest of his body into bed, brings cold air with him. "Told you I wasn't going anywhere," he whispers, voice gravelly.

"No," Sam mumbles back. "No, you never did. You never promised."

He tries for his kiss again, but Dean pushes him back.

"Here's a promise," Dean says. "I'm not gonna let you do anything you might regret."

Sam tries again, feeling unregretful.

"That means no, Sam," says Dean, and rolls until his back is all that faces Sam.

But Sam tells himself it could mean anything.

Anything at all.


	8. Chapter 8

"Hey, what were those empanada things again?" is the first thing Dean says to Sam, once he realizes Sam's awake.

"Encantados. They're dolphins. They're irrelevant."

"Too bad. I could go for an empanada."

"You're in a good mood," Sam observes. His head is killing him.

"Nah, you're just hungover." 

"My god--" Sam screws his eyes shut again.

Dean turns the lights out and takes a seat on the possum bed.

Then Sam remembers why he's not in a good mood--why nobody should be in a good mood.

"We are so fucked."

"These really aren't that bad," Dean says. He's eating one of the flat pastries Sam left for him yesterday. It's the first thing Sam's seen him eat in three days. 

"Oh, also, the credit card company called this morning," Dean continues. "They're not gonna bail us out. Apparently 'I' already have an account with them. So I guess Dad dipped in before we did."

They have one more night, and that's it. For real this time.

For someone who'd flipped his shit about this only days before, Dean sounds calm. Not in control, exactly; because Sam feels like that would entail exuding some measure of reassurance. It's more like they've passed this point of no return, and Dean just can't care anymore. 

"So what was last night about?" Sam asks woodenly.

Dean chokes on his pastry. For a split second, he looks deeply guilty. "I guess that depends on how much you remember."

"Was that some kind of suicide run? Like, 'We're never going to have enough money, anyway, so fuck it'?"

Relief isn't what Sam had expected that to elicit, but that's what he sees in Dean, in the morning shadows, in the dark of their room. He's back to not caring, or at least acting like it.

"I just needed to have some fun," Dean replies, which is a stupid answer. A stupid, irresponsible answer that spits in the face of their situation right now. But Sam knows it's the only one Dean has.

Sam's not angry. He's not even sure if he's afraid. Between the two of them, they should be capable of putting up enough to get through this. But if they run out of gas in the wrong place, or it gets colder, that's it. He sweeps his body across Dean's side of the bed until his legs find the edge. He sits up, feet cold on the ground, even through his socks.

Mentally, Sam's already there. And yeah, it's calm out there.

Then something wiggles against his foot. It's Dean's foot.

"What are you doing?" he rasp. God, his head hurts.

"Messing with you."

Yes, Dean is, but no, Dean's not. Never in the history of the world has footsie been Dean's go to for anything.

The stupid thing is, it feels kind of nice--the way it makes Sam's breath in his throat as he waits for one more fleeting microsecond of contact, wondering if there will be a next--and a next--

Sam's really hungover. That's what it is.

But at the back of his mind, he thinks, _Dean's not, though._

"Here," Dean says, kicking Sam's foot more forcefully. Then he stops, and the feel of him changes completely. He tosses a phone into Sam's lap. 

It's Mackie's.

"The battery was fried, so I switched mine in. Thought you might want to give the sister a call. I'm sorry about getting you so drunk. That was fucked up," he adds. "I promise not to hold any of the dumb shit you did last night against you."

Sam doesn't feel all that pressed to ask for details. If Dean's willing to spare him the mortifying play-by-play, he's all for that. The phone is a guilt gift; that's what matters.

"Aren't you going to need your phone?" Sam asks.

"In the next twelve minutes?" Dean asks, incredulously. "Who's gonna call me? Dad?"

"Well, yeah," says Sam. Ever since John's last call, which Dean had missed, he's paid more attention to his phone than a nanny with a newborn. If John were to call in the next twelve minutes, that might be the last chance Dean gets. They've fought about this.

"He can wait," says Dean.

Sam stares at the phone. Lying in bed, hangover stupid, in the dark in the cold with a case still over their heads and Dean swallowing his half-pill with another flat pastry and empty empty pockets and what Sam fears are their increasingly threadbare sanities, this feels like a culmination.

This might be the end of the line for them, and the best thing Sam will have done with their eleventh hour is tell a woman that her brother died.

He's so tired of living B roll.

Sam just wants to kill a monster--something bulbous and menacing and ideally not covered in turtles--and prove that any of this is worth anything. That he's worth something.

“This is, bar none, the worst case we've ever worked,” Sam mutters into the sheets.

"It does put the bog cow in perspective," Dean agrees. But as far as Sam's concerned they're still in that river.

Dean gives his knee a prod and reacts maybe more than he means to. "Pisses me off, though. I wasn't even _doing_ anything. I was just trying to get out of the way."

 

\--

 

They're still in that river, and they may never leave.

 

\--

 

Dean opts for another shower. Why he thinks Sam needs privacy for this call, Sam's not sure, but they do both smell like cheap beer and smoke.

Sara isn't on Mackie's list of recent callers, but she's nestled toward the bottom of his address book. 

Sam wonders if she'll be at work.

Maybe she'll be in bed with her husband, or getting her kids ready for school. 

Sam lets a minute go by and wonders if he's spared her one more minute of grief.

He wonders how long Jess's body had been waiting on the ceiling. When they'd stopped for gas outside of Jericho, Dean hadn't let them leave until Sam downed an entire cup of hot whiskey--the standard cure for nearly getting your heart ripped out by a dead woman.

Had Jess's heart been beating then?

Sam wonders if he could have survived a whole month of Dean dying, if they'd never left that hospital.

After five minutes, Sam imagines Sara having packed her kids off to school. She's waiting at a red light now, in traffic, worried she'll be late for the lunch shift. It's a normal day.

Maybe if Sam's lucky it will go to voicemail.

It doesn't.

All of his delicate phrasings fly from his mind when she says her name. But whatever he says instead, Sara replies, "Thank you for letting me know. Do you need anything else?"

Sam's not sure what to do with his tongue. He'd been prepared to answer questions--a lot of them. Just not that one.

"I mean, I guess not," he says.

"How are you holding up?" Sara asks. She sounds genuinely concerned, which is difficult to reconcile with her perfunctory grieflessness. Sam can't say he hadn't been warned, but this isn't what he had expected.

"My brother and I were really close," Sara explains, which solves no mysteries. "And I know he was good at making friends, no matter where he ended up. So I just wanted to make sure you were doing okay, too."

"Are you?" Sam asks. He can't help it.

"I'm gonna miss him," she says. "I need to call our mother now. You get some rest, okay? Take care of yourself, Sam."

 

\--

 

Sam throws out the Polaroid. 

There's no closure. It feels like tying up a loose end by cutting off its head. He can't stop his brain from compensating--from making Sara Sutherland into things she isn't. He doesn't know her; he doesn't have her story. Pretending like he knows anything about anything about her life, or Mackie's, is bullshit. But he even imagines the phone tree, Sara calling her mother and then watching Mackie's life span out from there, cable to cable, kitchen to kitchen, because he can't force himself to stop. Sam needs narrative; he needs this to make sense. He needs it to matter.

There's a note in the trash, which muzzily Sam recognizes as the lewd doodle Dean had found and dropped on top of him the night before--the one from the possum room's previous occupant. No ink, just the pressure indentation. 

It's stupid, but Sam picks it out. He wants a puzzle he can solve, and it seems novice enough to satisfy easily.

He tries to make out the message.

At the top of the page, there appears to be--a pigeon? A duck? No, definitely a duck. A flock of them.

The rest isn't immediately discernible, though there's some text at the bottom. He opts to tackle that first.

Then Sam jolts upright. 

His nails go white and the paper crumples in his grip.

"What the hell is this?" Sam shouts as he bursts into the bathroom and yanks the shower curtain back. It's dissonantly, pleasingly warm in the small space, but the wet thickness of the air suffocates. Sam takes a deep breath.

"Seriously, Sam?" Dean has his dick in his hand. He lets it drop, looking only a little uncomfortable. 

Dean had only barely gotten started, so as far as Sam's concerned, it's perfect timing. And anyway, Sam really doesn't care right now.

"The paper from last night. The one you thought was so funny!"

Unwilling to rise to Sam's alarm, Dean sedately shuts the water off and catches the towel Sam lobs at him.

"Did you draw this?" Sam's still shouting. He's not sure why.

"I'm obviously a better artist than that," Dean retorts. "I already told you, it's probably from Joe Possum. Also, you're standing on my clothes."

Sam offers Dean an arm as he maneuvers out of the shower. Dean glares, but he takes it, and Sam takes the moment to regroup.

"It definitely wasn't Joe Possum," Sam says, with studied composure. "Because this is me and Jess."

Dean drops onto the toilet seat and pulls the note from Sam's hand. He squints. "How can you tell?"

"I had that dream," Sam explains tersely. "I dreamed this."

Dean looks harder. "Well, appreciating this now feels 300 times dirtier than it used to."

Sam snatches it back. "You're missing the point. Do I have to spell this out for you?"

"If it makes you feel better."

Dean bends forward and tugs at the Ace wrap until Sam steps off it. He figure-eights it around his knee so swift and sure it's like that's what he does for a living.

Sam kicks Dean's boxers to the base of the toilet.

"So there's this thing-- A serendipity--"

"Japanese spirit. Idaho. Lots of fish. I remember--we've been talking about his all week. I'm not brain-dead, Sam."

"Just shut up and listen, will you? I am so fucking hungover."

"I said I was sorry."

"Put your shirt on. Do you remember me saying that serendipities can get inside your head? They absorb your thoughts so they know what kind of luck you need. They zero in on your dreams. I mean, luck's only remarkable if it feels personal, right?"

"And it's getting its murder on because…?"

"Does it matter? I mean, clearly something went wrong. I dunno if it went rogue, or Dark Side, or what. But we need to find this thing _now_. I dunno if you missed the part where this is me and Jess. From my dream. On a piece of fucking motel paper. Drawn by a crazy fairy," Sam hisses.

"Are you having second thoughts about having ducks that close to your--"

"Dean!"

"Do you have that spell you mentioned?" Dean asks. He gives Sam a look like, _Calm down, I get it. I know what this means. God._

It means there's a wish-granting fairy on the loose, and it's bad at its job. And now it's in Sam's dreams. 

It sounds like a joke, but if there's one thing that's definitely true about the world, it's this: Dumb shit kills. 

Also, Sam's next.


	9. Chapter 9

By the time they make it downstairs to the motel's microwave, ingredient-filled cup in hand, the savage energy of their offensive has dwindled somewhat, interrupted first by clothing, layer upon layer; then the mound of snow outside their door. Then the tribulation of the stairwell. Then Motel Guy's lunch, spinning in the microwave, cycle after cycle. It smells profane.

"If that's a defrosting rat, I'm gonna kill him," Sam mutters under his breath as they wait. Dean's hair, still wet when they'd departed and now defrosting, drips into his eyes.

"Hi," says Dean, when Motel Guy comes around to put his lunch through another cycle.

Motel Guy eyes them suspiciously.

"Oh, this is gonna go fantastic," says Sam. 

On their way over here, Sam had walked Dean through the provenance of the spell--the Nietzsche, the skulls, all of the exclamation points. Sam's never tested this before, but he's willing to bet it's a fact: The spell's user was probably going to trip balls--this being, of course, the reason this kind of magic was traditionally practiced. And a trip you can find on Geocities is probably a bad trip.

Now they're about to test that theory in the motel lobby, because it'd be stupid to go back upstairs, after all the work it took to get down here; and they've agreed that Sam should acclimate to the spell before they barge into Mackie's room--just in case the spell goes south. It's just that this their contingency plan is stupid, too.

"I mean, who doesn't wait in line for the microwave before they go off and vanquish a murderous ball of invisible light?" Dean says.

Rime, Idaho doesn't give a fuck about exigency.

The microwave dings. They wait. 

"This isn't gonna--take you anywhere, right?" Dean asks suddenly.

"What?" Sam replies. "I mean, no. I don't think so. I don't think serendipities have their own 'realm,' like other fae. They just sort of bumble around this one. Or I guess, this is theirs? Sort of like kami."

"Good," Dean says, and doesn't press the issue. But he won't stop jiggling his good leg, and Sam gets the impression Dean might be a touch apprehensive about all this. And the truth is, so is Sam; at the end of the day, Sam prefers it when he knows Dean could run to save him if he needed to. And when Dean is a teensy bit less medicated.

Not that Dean hasn't leveled out. He's got an infinitely better handle on himself than he did this time yesterday. But this is Sam's ass on the line, and he feels like there's an important difference between 100% and intelligently conversational.

"Can we make a deal, right now?" Sam asks. "Can we promise we won't do anything that involves… not being on Earth, or crossing dimensions, or--you know, breaking through to the other side. Whatever."

"Gold Earring gets a pass," Dean amends. "But yeah, I guess? That sounds doable."

Dean stares at the microwave. Then he shudders.

"What."

“Now I’m just thinking about those steam cleaning commercials. You know, where they do the fake microscope thing and all the germs and fleas and shit are building a mall in your carpet fibers? Do you think that's what this spell is gonna be like? 'Cause that's gross.”

Nothing with that description springs to mind, and Sam can't think of an ad that would have been less relevant to their lives. So much for hitting its target demographic.

“You don’t even have carpet,” Sam says. "You don't have a house."

“So?”

By the time Motel Guy retrieves his TV dinner tray from the microwave, Sam is ready for a hot beverage of any stripe, magically vision-enhancing or not. But even with the bar set low, it's hard to get excited about this.

After all the time it took to get here, the brew is ready in no time at all, Motel Guy slurping his stroganoff-looking thing at the front desk, and Dean holding the cup out in front of him.

When Sam hesitates, Dean holds it closer to Sam's face.

“I mean, it’s probably like asbestos, or mercury. Like, don’t swallow a whole thermometer, and it'll be fine,” he says.

Sam’s pretty sure that in this analogy, hunting is tantamount to eating thermometers for breakfast, but--

"Not helpful," he says instead.

It's so hot he can't down the thing all at once, but perhaps that's a good thing. If he can work up to the full force of the spell, this might not be so bad.

But each time he brings it to his lips, he wishes harder that the thing in front of him wasn't Dean's heart.

It's faint at first, a trick of the light, but with every sip the impression deepens: Even beneath Dean's coat, his flannel, the tee he borrowed, Sam can see the gentle pulse of white, particulate light moving through his chest. With every breath, he exhales white motes. It's the reaper, Sam knows, its work printed on Dean's heart like any other signature--it's proof of ownership. It's a reminder magic is the only reason Dean's still here. How easily he might not have been.

There are other tags clinging to Dean's body, lesser and multi-colored, brushes from past hunts and probably the remnants of a lucky penny here and there. The motel lobby is much the same--tags wafting from the spackled ceiling like snow and heavy on the counters like so much dust. Dean's nightmare scenario, with the rug commercial, actually isn't inaccurate. Most of it is incidental--a reminder that there's always magic in the world, dormant or latent or insignificant. Not all of that magic is monstrous--most isn't--that is, right up until there's a glitch in the system and some guy named Mackie Sutherland ends up dead.

This dust moves and jitters, but all of it is old and dim, distant. It's old news. All except Dean's heart.

And Sam's hands.

Sam almost drops the cup when he realizes the glow. He'd been so morbidly transfixed by Dean's new nakedness he hadn't noticed his own.

His hands are red, veins like ropey lava. All the way up his forearms and probably--further, everywhere, he doesn't know, and then he's on the edge of panic--and then Dean's hands are on his shoulders, and Dean's mouth puffs white light into his field of vision.

"Hey, are you okay? How's it feel?" Dean asks.

"It's fine," Sam manages. It feels like someone pierced his stomach and he wishes Dean would get out of his face. Sam looks at Dean and feels cold dread, frozen fear. But the red in his veins--that's disgust. That's despair. Because maybe he's always suspected he was--wrong, somehow. Made wrong, or turned wrong. Destined wrong. 

He wants to be surprised by this, confused, but maybe this makes too much sense. It was his nursery, after all. Jess was his girlfriend. And his visions had to come from somewhere. He is tainted, he is evil, and this is the damning proof.

Maybe that's not it at all, though. Maybe it's just the serendipity. He's its mark, after all. To get to his dreams and learn what serendipities it should bestow, maybe it needs to swim in his blood.

It's just the serendipity, and he's innocent.

The magic, signed blood-deep, has nothing to do with him. It's the serendipity.

He's fine.

"Are you sure?" Dean asks.

"It's fine," Sam repeats. He winces, keeps his eyes shut, but the light follows him into darkness and they swirl like chemical trails before him.

"I just feel--more hungover. And everything is fucking bright. Great combination, obviously."

"Awesome," says Dean. "Round two, then--I'm gonna join you. So we'll both--"

"No," Sam interrupts. He shoves his hands in his pockets and tries not to look down. 

"I'm fine," Dean says. "What, you think I'm gonna crossfade? I don't like fighting things I can't see."

"Says the ghost hunter. No round two."

"Are _you_ fine?" Dean asks again, breathes white. His heart beats synaesthetic white.

"I'm gonna need you to cover me," Sam answers. Which is true--it really is. But more importantly, Dean buys it. Sam knew he would. He tries not to think about the red in his veins.

"No loitering," Motel Guy barks from the front desk, craning his head around the corner to shoot them an assessing glare. "No funny business."

"Hi," Dean says to Motel Guy again. 

"We're almost done. It's a blood sugar thing," Dean tells him. He nods vigorously as he pulls Sam toward the door. "You know," he says, "we're just going to head back to our room now. Uh, yeah. Don't mind us. It's all good. Yeah."

Every word shines like a warning and a reprimand. White white white.

_To whom do you owe this life? His heart? Your brother, still here. What did it take to win him back?_

_Who are you, to have chased that wager? What are you made of?_

_What's inside you?_

 

\--

 

He's on the road because his girlfriend died. His mother, too; and he's supposed to be here because his vengeance is a tributary that joins John's river. He's supposed to be hunting a demon--hunting monsters and saving people. And he's here with his brother because--Sam's not sure what Dean's deal is. Because filial piety. Because it hasn't yet occurred to Dean he might want to find something better to do.

But Sam doesn't feel like a man on a mission; he's the condemned before a firing squad, guerilla-style. There are no neat lines and they don't take turns: Jess is a 200-grain point blank, center of mass. John is smaller, less important, but that one hits Sam's brain, shoots through white matter and drags eggshell skull down with it. Dean, of course, shatters on impact--shrapnel tearing and melted metal bits scattering through his lungs. Then there's the job, the shit motels and their empty stomachs and that feeling of oblivion, which is the river where they dump Sam's body, after they are done.

Sam needs a trajectory--grow up, get independent, get safe, fall in love, achieve success. Or even: Hunt, save, vanquish evil. Get even. He's supposed to be here because these are the things he needs. He needs-- _forward_ , he needs landmarks, he needs focus.

Then he's in Rime, Idaho, sliding so far off the page he can barely find the monster they stayed for. Hunting is apparently their entire purpose on this God-forsaken planet, bar none and before all, but they can't even scrape together the cash to stay alive and healthy. They can't have an argument without having twenty. They can't look each other in the eyes without seeing the ghosts of people dead or hiding. Sam's life slogs and crawls and sometimes skitters, but he makes no journeys. Just circles the drain. Loses pieces, bullet by bullet.

And the one time a path finally sings clear, it's dark, and red, and it's not for any hero at all.

 

\--

 

On the way to Mackie's room, Dean asks him three more times if he's ready for this, which is approximately three too many.

"Just take this." Sam takes his video camera out of the duffel and hands it to Dean. "If ghosts can leave handprints, they can draw pictures. All this, it could still be a ghost after all."

"It's cold enough," Dean allows, though he takes no pains to disguise his obvious skepticism. It's definitely not a ghost.

Sam knows. They've finally found some cause and effect, if/then, X therefore Y. Sam just can't face that music anymore.

Sam tries not to make it obvious that he's averting his gaze. A few hours ago, Dean had been fucking naked, and Sam hadn't thought much of it. But now he can't look at proof of their history--wild with the indelible marks of everything that's happened, everything they've lived (or failed to), everything they absolutely can't outrun--without feeling sick to his stomach.

Not that Sam has much of a choice. Mackie's room resembles a jungle gym, phosphorescent nets piled up on the bed, hanging in the doorways, strewn on the floor. The serendipity's obviously been here, but there's so many traces Sam's not sure he can sift through it all. He's not sure which signature is hottest.

They're also not red. There isn't even any red on the ground, never mind recent dustings.

That's all Sam.

He can feel his lungs lose their patter and his breathing stutters, no matter how hard he tries to focus on the task at hand. He knows it's impossible; he can't unravel all this shit. Where first they had too few clues, now they have far too many. The thing's not even pinning its nets down anymore--just throwing them every which way, like splattering explosions of influence. It's a mess.

Then there's Sam.

And maybe it's just the spell. The spell is magic, right? So it should have a color. Sam drank it, and now it's in him. That's all.

But he knows that's actually not all; whatever this is, it's in him. It _is_ him.

It put his mother on the ceiling, and then it took Jess, too. It took everything. The tag feels like an origin story. It opens its mouth and it smiles, sing-songs: You put them in the ground, Sam. You put your family on the road. And everything, everything that's ever happened, everything that's ever gone to shit for you, every bullet that's torn straight through your friends, your family--that's on you. And by the way, you fucked your dad before he ever fucked you.

_Just look at your hands._

"Sam," Dean says urgently. His hand finds Sam's elbow, and Sam snaps back to center. 

"Sorry," he says. "I'm just--"

The room spins.

"You're hyperventilating, is what you're doing. Sam--"

Dean's shining in front of him again.

"Stop breathing," Sam gasps. It's a strange request, and Sam owns that; but he can't watch reaper sweep in and out of Dean like that right now--he just can't. And he doesn't have the energy to explain. 

Dean goes for it, though. He holds his breath until Sam's own evens out.

"What's the lay of the land?" Dean asks, but Sam doesn't answer. He can't stop thinking about what Dean might do if he could see what Sam could. If he could see what Sam was.

But maybe he wouldn't think anything of it at all; Sam's not sure he actually believes Sam's had any visions at all. He wouldn't see the mounting evidence. Sam can, though, and his is judgment enough.

"Five minutes and we're leaving," Dean tells him, after waiting out the silence. "You can't stay in here."

But, as has been the case this entire time, Mackie's not their biggest issue; not even this stupid serendipity is. It's Dean. It's Sam. Mostly, it's Sam. That kind of wrong doesn't just stay in its room.

Sam clears his throat. "I need to double-check something. Keep watch."

"Five minutes," Dean reminds him firmly. It's his tone of voice that comes with eagle scrutiny. Watchful and wary.

For him. Watchful _for_ him, not of him, Sam reminds himself. But maybe that makes it worse.

"This tape would be worth way more money if you died on camera, though. Just a fundraising idea," Dean quips.

Sam ignores him, and crouches down to pull his laptop out of the duffel.

He knows before he boots it up that looking up aura divination is a rabbit hole, but part of him still wants to try. He imagines loading Search the Web and having it spit out the answer, no words minced or love lost:

_Red._

_You're a monster, Sam Winchester._

So when his throat first closes, he thinks it's just his body betraying him again. _You're a monster, and we're going to end you like one._ Then the Ethernet cord swings around his neck another time, and yanks him clear across the floor. It's instant.

He can't breathe. His surprise is voiceless. His head cracks against the wall and his nails scramble against the smooth plastic surface of the cord. Apparently the serendipity's back in town--and Nietzsche spell or no, it hadn't deigned to offer warning. The world lights up yellow-green all around him, bright like a mouthful of firecrackers, and Sam slips underwater just like Dean, long ago in the dark. Ice and deep, undisturbed silt. Water churning above him, stripping direction from the river. 

He needs Dean's hands to find him, pull him out, but they don't come.

When he peels his eyes open, he sees nothing but the ceiling, now like yellowing forest canopy--light through the skin of jittering, sickly, translucent leaves.

And why had the demon left Jess up there? On the ceiling of all places. A mockery of Heaven, perhaps. Or just a place of smoke.

He'd assumed she'd died before she burned, but maybe she'd watched him flop into bed, content. Maybe there was already smoke in her lungs, a fire in her belly, and she suffocated slow.

He imagines Mackie surrounded by friends, and not the loner he'd assumed. Maybe Sara's a liar, and now she's alone, too. No husband, no kids--nothing of the zany fantasy Sam engineered.

Maybe they are all of them alone. 

Dean too, in a minute or so. Dean especially. Dean at the bottom of a river, or of wet basement stairs.

The room around him has a current, and it rushes past him. He loses the feeling of his body, of having one at all. Then, for the second time this week, Dean comes at him knifepoint first.

The first time, the knife was panic-driven, disoriented. There was a bax'aan bearing down. This time, it's because Dean slams down on top of him. 

Maybe the serendipity is after him, too; maybe it's just the fastest means Dean has at his disposal. He knocks the air from Sam's belly, but Sam's trachea surrenders no prisoners, and tears flush to his eyes because it feels like that air, particle by particle, must be ripping through his cells, perforating organs. He'd scream if he could. Dean screams for the both of them.

Suddenly, Sam wants to wrap his arms around his brother, tell him _shit, shit I got you it's gonna be okay I got you I got you_ but Sam doesn't got him, Sam can't breathe.

Dean's fingers dig at the edge of the cable and into Sam's neck, but nothing gives. The knife's still out there somewhere, but Sam's lost track of it.

Then it's back. Dean can't beat the cord, so he starts sawing through it. Sam's throat hurts so bad it's hard to believe Dean's not just sawing through him, too. He can only imagine how much blood there'd be--surging and writhing and powerfully bright.

He tries to think about tiny pills. Dean and a knife and the palm of his hand.

Unbroken skin. 

Unbroken skin.

Dean and a blade and precision.

 

\--

 

Unbroken--

\--

 

When he wakes, it's to nothing but white. He thinks, in this order: Smoke. Housefire. Heaven. Snowdrift. Dean.

Dean breathing ragged in his face. His heart racing, the reaper's tag like a swirling hurricane in his chest.

Sam can breathe again. His head flushes with blood so quickly he can see the red haze rising up from his face, too close to the skin to hide from. It's not tempered by anything yellow-green. The serendipity is gone again, then. They missed it.

“Hey, look at me,” says Dean, because of course he would. _Look at me. Look at me._ The one thing Sam doesn’t want to do. He sees Dean and he sees death; he sees loss. He's dragging Dean out of that basement. Out of the river. Out of the next disaster, too late. He sees _This is going to happen again_ and _I can't survive this again_. He's not surviving this time.

"I--" Sam croaks, soundlessly.

Sam feels like it’s all going to fall right out of him--his remorse and his guilt. His stupidity. Recklessness, maybe; selfishness definitely. Whatever evil thing he’s been incubating inside of him--visions last month; next week, Apocalypse. But mostly, the pain. If he looks at Dean now, Dean will see everything. And he’ll know. Every horrible thing Sam is, everything he’s done--all the things he hasn’t, refused to do, to see--will rise up and bleed, vitreous and obvious and unforgivable. He got Jess killed; he dreams monsters and they happen; he burns bright in the presence of the wicked truth. And Dean will know.

“Sammy--” says Dean. The word starts as an order and ends as a plea.

Sam raises his head to Dean looking intently up at him.

Dean has this knack for making it very obvious who he’s looking at-- _hey you, yeah you; you’re the only person in the world; and all 410% of my attention is on you, you, you_ \--which probably works wonders during interrogations (and now that Sam’s thinking about it, also for one night stands), but which Sam absolutely hates. Being the subject of Dean’s scrutiny is already like jumping into a kiln, a suffocating heat that broils him from the inside out.

Now it's hell.

What Dean sees in Sam, though, summons no fire. After an eternal second or two, relief washes visibly over Dean’s face, wresting the tension from his jaw and the knit from his brow. _You’re okay,_ he seems to say. _You’re okay, Sam._

_You’re gonna be okay._

Dean collapses against Sam then; he's shaking. The knife, still in hand, shivers in the far haze of Sam's vision, too close to his axillary artery for Sam to entirely trust Dean's grip. Dean's making it hard to breathe. But as Dean slides from him slowly, Sam misses Dean's warmth over his chest. Can't survive losing it.

Sam grabs for Dean, as though he were a blanket, and Dean's fingers brush scratchy over Sam's neck.

If Dean's close enough, Sam can't see the reminders of his being lost. The reaper's tags smother between them. The light dampens. The red in his veins never wanes, vicious and accusatory, but if he can focus on the feel of Dean in his hands, it all matters less.

Dean's touch, in a straight line down Sam's side. The hover of his fingers over fiery skin. The soles of Sam's feet tingle, and his face burns redder, and his jeans pinch at the crotch. Sam moans.

Dean cuts the sound off with a kiss. He's white white in Sam's eyes and then he's the skin of his lips. Gentle teeth. He's still breathing too hard. It's not exhilaration anymore, or panic, but pain. He still doesn't break the kiss.

Sam's heart leaps to the ceiling of his ribcage and feels the river of the room around him.

He grabs Dean's shirt (his shirt) and pulls.

 

\--

 

In his dream, he and Jess are feeding the ducks.

They don't bite, she promises.


	10. Chapter 10

“Breakfast,” Sam announces, lobbing a strawberry pastry at Dean’s body. It lands between his shoulder blades with a satisfying smack, so Sam throws another one--cinnamon raisin. Nape of Dean’s neck. 

Dean flinches away, but doesn't get up. He keeps his face buried firmly in pillow. “If either of those were raisin, so help me--” he mumbles into the bed.

It's too early for this, Sam knows. He has no idea how long they were on the floor of Mackie's room, kissing at first but mostly just lying there, insensible to all. Like sad beached whales. Sam had felt legless and Dean quickly became nothing but--he became the interests and emotions of exactly one very angry leg. Beyond that, it's all muddled--they'd made it back upstairs, sleep had been involved, Sam got pastries--but it's probably still too early for this.

So Sam throws another pastry at Dean's prone form. It lands on his ass. 

He’s not even sure why he's doing it--but there Dean is, and here are the pastries, and it's as good an alarm clock as any. It's too early for the day to have found any definition, and Sam feels fluid. Today so far they've hit no icebergs, must contend with no pasts--least of all what happened last night. 

In less than 24 hours, they will be homeless. But one thing at a time.

“How many of those do you even have?” Dean asks finally, and gets an apple one in the face. 

Dean doesn't react immediately, and for a moment it seems like he isn't planning to. He's not in a good mood, is probably in pain, probably exhausted. The day wakes with him.

Sam is exhausted, too. And if Sam thinks at all, he'll be in pain. He'll be in so much pain he won't be able to stand it. Never mind his throat--that, he doesn't care about. But his stomach feels half caved in already, sinking under the weight of some terrible thing, all undertow and yearning. Sam doesn't even think too hard about the pastries--just feels them as they leave his hand, listens as they smack plastic and squelchy against Dean’s body. Dean may have saved Sam's life last night, but he didn't fix it. 

He throws another pastry.

Dean responds by gathering all of Sam's expended ammunition with a wide sweep of his arm across the bedspread. He says something about losing the high ground, Sammy. Something about a taste of his own medicine. Retaliation.

But if Dean thinks the six pastries in his lap are the end of things, he's sorely mistaken. 

“There's something you're gonna want to see before you launch your counterstrike. Just so you know what you're up against,” Sam says, which stays Dean’s hand.

Sam opens his arms wide and shakes. And out of pockets, jacket linings, sleeves, his shirt, his belt, the trim of his jeans drops a veritable cascade of continental pastries. 

Forty-two more, to be exact.

The look on Dean’s face is worth every empty calorie Sam’s just doomed them to this week. Sam calls that look Righteous Fucking Awe.

“And you assumed I didn't learn anything at college,” Sam says.

For about a minute, they are two brothers in a motel room with an adventure story. They have the plunder to prove it, and victory tastes sweet.

This is their one good thing.

Sam's been working all week for this.

Then Dean remembers himself and, killjoy that he is, he frowns. "Has the spell worn off yet?"

Sam shakes his head--slowly, so the colors don't smear.

"Didn't think so."

So Dean can tell, then. That Sam will only look at him askance. Not that it's personal--or not anymore. 

For a spell that's supposed to deepen his planes of vision, Sam thinks he sees a lot less. He puts so much effort into blocking out light and stimuli it's worthless to seek detail.

"It doesn't hurt anymore," Sam assures him. "It's just. Colorful. I guess I feel like it's fully seeded now? And yesterday I was still working up to the plateau."

"Does it ever wear off?" Dean asks doubtfully.

"I mean, it's marketed toward Burning Man hippies and bored soccer moms. It's not exactly blood magic."

Which is a phrase poorly chosen. Sam's disgust pools at the back of his mouth and his teeth taste like metal. He tries to think about stupid things, like Nietzsche and his six 8-bit skulls and crossbones, partying on Sam's computer screen like it's 1999.

But Dean just says, "Yeah, uh. I dunno how many wastoids you know, but I'm pretty certain some of their shit never wears off, either. Though I'm beginning to see why they think _Wizard of Oz_ is so fucking great."

Dean tears away the cellophane of his second pastry that morning, folds it in half--jam side in--and stuffs the entire thing in his mouth.

"So am I in black and white, then?" Dean asks, his mouth full. 

He looks like an idiot. Then he swallows, and doesn't. 

He licks the jelly from his lips, red and shiny--and ask God how Sam's not supposed to think about Dean's lips on his, after that. He can practically taste vicarious sugar. 

Sam doesn't know if he wants to kiss Dean again, if he puts it like that. _Kissing_ is so specific. But he needs to be that close to his brother; and he needs the feeling of Dean's lips.

Dean's still waiting for an answer.

It's not clear what Dean's asking--if it's a question about his humanity, his purity, or if Dean's just thinking about whether he'd look hot pre-Kodachrome. So Sam answers honestly.

"No, Auntie Em. You're not."

"Damn."

The light in his chest burns bright, blanching his features fluorescent and cold.

"So, you've thrown your chips in with the Lollipop Guild, clearly." Dean gestures at the pile of pastries on the floor with what will be his third. "Do you get a musical number? 'Cause I'm getting that vibe, Mr. Sunshine, and I don't wanna be in the room for that shit."

Dean swallows. Then he jaw sets. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you actually enjoyed last night."

Sam thinks, It's too early to think too hard. It's far too early to think too hard. 

This he knows, though: He enjoyed the warmth of Dean's body against him. He enjoyed the relief on Dean's tongue, his desperate exhausted love. He enjoyed knowing Dean was right fucking there.

But Dean skates right past that conversation. In fact, before Sam can say anything, Dean slams the curb and drives them straight towards the edge of a cliff. He's not talking about the kiss; he's talking about everything else.

"Sam, you gotta come clean with me. If this thing tries to play nice, or break _good_ or whatever, what the the hell were you thinking about? Are you into kinky throat stuff, or just dying? Was that the favor it was going for? 'Cause I'm hoping near-death experiences aren't really your jam. "

Dean's halfway through his fourth pastry. He licks the skin above his lips a sticky raspberry scarlet before sweeping back again, licking it clean. His teeth rip through the pastry savagely.

He seems angry, blindsided. Maybe he's tired of panicking. Sam's familiar with the pattern. This is what they do to each other, and Sam knows exactly what all of that feels like.

That doesn't mean he knows what to say.

(Things he won't say: Yes, he's into kinky throat stuff. So was she.

Yes, he's thought about just giving up and dying. But who hasn't? Maybe that's okay. Maybe--)

The truth is, Sam's not sure if he's okay. Mostly, he assumes he is, inasmuch as anyone freewheeling around the country and hunting ghosts ever is. Then he'll wake up the next day he had a vision; he's become a living nightmare; and there's something in his blood. And everything he is, everything he's lost, will hit him like a semi truck. All his faults will quake at once. Because you can't drive away from the demon on your ceiling, or yourself--or even grief, which at the very least feels like you should be able to serve your sentence and find release. Especially when you know your grief is all your fault.

No, Sam thinks.

_No no no._

"How's the throat?" Dean asks. He sounds less angry, now over-anxious, like maybe Sam's acting a little too weird. But fuck, his girlfriend's dead, his brother frenched him, his blood's lighting up like a crime scene under magical ultraviolet, and God, he's hungry. He might be allowed.

"Like it can't believe you're shoving another one of those down yours," Sam replies, gesturing at the pastry wrappers adorning Dean's lap.

"Hey, there's a reason there's five different flavors," Dean points out. "You're getting a little"--his free fingers flutter around his eyes before they wrap around his neck--"and I figure the bruising's gonna come in real nice in a day or so. But I mean, other than that, you're good? You're…?"

"Petechial," Sam says flatly. "That's the word you're looking for." 

He'd seen himself in the mirror. Between him and Dean's pallor, they look like the zombie apocalypse. Dean may be running his mouth, but the rest of him is in shambles far behind it. 

"Fine, _petechial._ No brain damage, then," Dean smirks. "Any new fae traces we should be worried about? Did it come up here with us? I warded the room with everything we got."

"No," Sam confirms. "I mean, if it still wanted to kill me, it probably wouldn't have let up last night. And I looked around when I nabbed all the pastries--nothing. So that's...lucky, I guess."

"It wasn't born to touch your feelings after all. Sorry, man. But if you ever want to woo it back, my advice? Don't use these." He sticks out his tongue and lets another pastry wrapper flutter to the ground. "They're crap."

"You like them," Sam objects. "That's what, Number 6? I thought you said there were five flavors for a reason."

Dean shrugs. "Okay, the apple ain't bad. You'll like the cheese one better, though. You weirdo."

"What, now you're a danish connoisseur?" 

Dean tosses three cheese danishes back into Sam's hands. And the annoying part is, Dean's probably right. Annoying, warming--sometimes it's hard to know the difference. Sam tears off a cellophane corner and smiles.

"So what's it pair with--beer or whiskey?" he jokes. But Dean doesn't joke back.

Instead Dean mutters "Yeah, I fucking wish," as he reaches for his jacket. It's splayed over his pillow. 

"Take another one of these, too."

Oh, right. That's the difference.

Sam refuses the pill bottle. "I'm fine. Really."

Dean shakes it insistently. The rattle is hollow and lonely-sounding. "You're not gonna die on me like Mackie did. C'mon, down the hatch--that shit could be swelling as we speak."

" _You_ take them."

"Oh, definitely," Dean agrees. "But I need you to be okay, man. Humor me. Just one more--it's not like I'm a drug dealer. Humor me."

It's only once Sam swallows that Dean admits he's pretty sure he tore something last night. More of his knee. The rest of it? Something new, and with it a new and electric sort of pain. A new depth to the hole they must now climb out of. Or one more bar in the gate that says they won't be.

"You're an idiot."

Dean dry-swallows two of their remaining stash and spins the cap to Locked again. That's four times what he'd been rolling with yesterday, and twice the dose he'd started with. He's going to be slop on the floor.

"We've got five of these left," Dean says. "So we gank this bitch by sundown or bust. I guess."

He doesn't mention what they'll do when the case is over and they have to keep existing. Maybe they should just invest in accelerant. At least that way they'll go out warm.

That's morbid and terrible, though. So the thing to do, Sam decides, is to retreat from suicide and talk about incest instead.

Because that's what just happened, isn't it? Textbook case.

That wasn't a chaste kiss.

 _One_ kiss, Sam reminds himself. Under duress. 

But maybe it's not; maybe it's the fall of a shirt over skin and the weight of a body in a bed. It's the promise of having light blocked out, signatures erased, and the privilege of simple, physical presence. Sam's still standing at the foot of his pile of pastries, at the foot of the bed, because if he sits down with Dean he will wrap his arms around his brother. Knead Dean's brow against his own and push their thighs together. He will keep Dean close.

 _I can't lose you,_ Sam thinks again. _I just can't._

"You know that _I Love Lucy_ episode where there are too many chocolates coming down on the conveyor belt?" Sam blurts out, imperfect segue. But Dean nods.

He says, "I'm too fucking hungry for this analogy," but he nods.

"There were tags-- _all_ over that room. Like a tornado hit it. So I'm thinking maybe the serendipity's biting off more than it can chew? Like, maybe it's... broken? And getting--"

Except now Sam's self-conscious about his analogy. His mind balloons with mixed batter metaphors, truffle toppings, pastry fillings. Then it all seems incredibly stupid.

"--confused, all right? I think the serendipity is getting confused. I had this thought earlier, but now I'm really thinking it might be true."

"That's what we're going with? Why?" says Dean.

"Well. People are confusing."

Right now, Sam doesn't need a lucky penny. He wouldn't accept a spring in his step. But he has a thousand things he does want, and a million he'd do anything to keep away. Impossibilities, trivialities, fears so large they loom like obsession and maybe sound like want. Maybe if he tells himself he can't lose Dean too often it starts to sound like he wants the trauma; he wants the choking terror that accompanies the thought. Maybe he wants to be haunted--by Jess, by anything. Maybe he wants to be bled.

If Sam can't keep all this straight, he wouldn't trust a monster to. And he knows how it had felt, cord around his throat and serendipity blinding in his face. In his head.

He looks not-at-Dean and he thinks, half the time what people want is what's going to fuck them up. 

Sam's heart swells and his stomach roils.

Of course it'd get confusing.

Sam pulls off his boots and shuffles toward the bed. He doesn't know what time it is--late AM. He just wants to go back to sleep. With Dean.

But by the time his fingers hit the sheet, Dean's already stealing away.

Dean still hasn't said anything about them on the ground together, and it occurs to Sam Dean might not find this confusing at all. Maybe for Dean, none of that shit can ever happen again.

Dean doesn't bother lacing his boots, and he doesn't zip his coat. He doesn't bother trying not to limp. It all seems like a recipe for disaster.

"Where are you going?" Sam asks. Because he has to, doesn't he?

"People aren't confusing. They're just fucked up," says Dean.

"I don't know that the two are mutually exclusive," Sam argues. It's clinical, and sterile, but this conversation doesn't need any more briefcase bombs. Sam can feel Dean spinning out post-detonation as it is.

Dean doesn't ask for the keys back this time, just pulls the deadlock and slides the chain free.

"Dean, seriously."

"Coffee, then! Goddamn it, Sam," Dean snaps. "I watched your girlfriend burn, and then I kissed you. I'm going _out._ "

 

\--

 

It's not until this moment, until Dean, that it occurs to Sam that this could ever be seen as an either/or--Jess over Dean, or Dean over Jess. It doesn't feel that way to Sam.

Jess is gone and Dean is his brother, and maybe Sam's willing to burn from both ends if he has to.

 

\--

 

When the door doesn't slam shut, Sam looks up, hoping he'll find Dean turned back toward him, bared and open to him; hoping it'll be Jess in the doorframe. 

Sam's not sure what he's hoping.

But when he looks up it's just Dean's back, as poised to abandon him as ever, and beyond him two bundles of Carhartt and puffy, bright orange synthetic wool. It's the two hunters from the bar.

"Jesus, what is that smell?" asks--Roy, Sam guesses. It's 50/50; they're indistinguishable in all their outdoor gear. Sam's gaze drops straight to the possum. But if it smells, he can't tell anymore.

"What's in the bag?" Dean counters.

Sam can't see any bag, not with Dean resolutely refusing Walt and Roy entry, but that he does smell. Hot grease, seasoned by its week in the fryer; potatoes, bacon, and cheese. Sam swears he can see the steam rising in the morning air. But that's just Walt's cigarette--because now Sam can smell that, too. 

It doesn't keep Sam's stomach from cramping hard against its emptiness. Suddenly, all the pastries in Rime don't seem adequate. It's like these guys are just here to rub it in their faces.

"What's it to you?" says Walt.

Sam can't see Dean's face, but it doesn't matter; he's always been able to read Dean's body better than his face, or any of the words that issue from it. There's an arc to his shoulders, a cant to his legs; and more than any pain Dean's in, or any blood between him and the men before him, Dean's hungry. And he really fucking wants whatever's in that bag.

Sam's not sure why he thought they'd be able to handle something as complicated as each other. They can't even feed themselves.

"I just wanna know what I'm paying for. Poker winnings, and all," Dean replies evenly. Sam just barely catches the crinkle of his eyes as his profile catches the morning light. Zero degree smile.

"It's funereal," Roy informs him. He says it carefully, like it's his $50 word and he doesn't want to scuff it. "Funereal breakfast. We picked up Mackie's body yesterday. Drove four hours trying to find anyone'd sell us wood--everyone's bunkered up for a long winter or some groundhog shit."

"Someone's gotta do it right," adds Walt. "The funeral, I mean."

Dean's attention scatters toward Sam for a split, disheveled second. All Sam can think is he looks extremely guilty.

"Not the bunkering," Walt clarifies. It seems unnecessary.

But it drags Dean back to Walt and Roy. "That's real thoughtful of you," he says. "Did you splurge for a casket, some nice flowers? Or were you gonna just eat those too? 'Funereal' my ass."

Neither rise to Dean's challenge. "Show some respect," Roy says, his timbre bordering on tremulous. "A good man's dead, you know?"

Dean snorts. "I'm sure you'll burn him thorough, then. I mean, how dumb would we look if you got back here in time to actually help ice the thing that killed him?" 

He means, _You fucking cowards._

And that Sam doesn't doubt--their cowardice. But Walt crosses himself, still holding in his gloved hand what Sam can now see is a massive, grease-wet paper bag. Roy bites his lip until the red of it's the brightest thing in view, aside from Walt's hat. They're sorry Mackie's gone.

Sorrier than anyone else Sam's found. He's still not sure what to make of Sara.

"How you gonna take it out?" Walt asks, when the silence stretches taut and wan. 

"With everything we have," says Dean, and Sam wonders if he runs lines like that in the mirror, like some sort of warped Lord's Prayer.

But if Roy is thinking any similar critique, he doesn't let on. 

"Did Mackie smoke?" Sam asks, and suddenly Dean, Walt and Roy throw their collective attention at him. Dean looks guarded, restive, though Sam's pretty sure that's got nothing to do with him--that's on their guests. Roy looks bemused. Walt seems surprised he'd said anything at all, like he'd mistaken Sam for furniture. Again.

 _Show some respect_ is right, Sam thinks. But he just says, "Well?"

"Used to," says Walt.

"Now he mostly just gets off on watching," says Roy.

He pauses. "He used to mostly just get off on watching. Hasn't smoked in a long time."

"Then he's overdue," Dean cuts back in. "For guys with a body in your trunk, you're taking your damn sweet time."

"If you want us to swing back--" Roy starts, but apparently Dean's not done cutting.

Low and coarsely hissed, so quiet Sam suspects he wasn't meant to hear, Dean says, "It's my brother's ass on the line now. You don't get to touch this anymore."

"Go burn your bones, Roy," Dean finishes, at volume. "You too, Walt. Now get the hell out."

"We'll tell Mackie you paid your respects," says Roy, expression neutral. "We're just trying to help, man. Jesus."

Walt touches the front of his hat as they excuse themselves. 

Dean sinks back against the door as it closes.

"What the hell was that?" Sam asks.

Pain whittles at Dean's jawline for a moment, before he takes control of the situation and shoves it back somewhere. Into the particleboard of the door, if the way he's leaning is any indication. He says, "The county would have cremated him eventually."

He says, "Fuck their bacon and cheese shit."

He says, "Let's just get this done."

Sam doesn't disagree with any particular point. But Walt and Roy _were_ trying to help, weren't they? Incompletely and ineffectively, and in a way that makes Sam feel like shit, but they were here to help.

"I know we should have taken him home. Just so you know," Dean admits morosely. "I know we should have burned him, first thing. But I just--"

Sam and Dean cut corners. They made their monster wait. They didn't burn the body. They'd been tired, sick, distracted. They fucked this up. Then Sam almost died, and now Dean's probably not getting that knee back 100%, if ever at all. And Dean kissed him. And Sam kissed back.

Which means they've _really_ fucked this up.

"The county would have cremated him eventually," Sam agrees. "I hear you."

 

\--

 

So this is the best they got: Wait for the thing to show itself, trap it. Get the hell out of Rime. Sam's not sure if a bowl of Wheaties would have improved their plan, or at least made it more proactive, but Dean spent all afternoon carving binding runes onto a flask he'd found with Mackie's effects, so he must have some faith in the idea. Iron flask, silver inlay, binding runes--they've gone with less. 

They're going to trap it, and… go from there.

In the meantime, Sam's been driving them around the strip, the motel, even as far out as the last speed limit sign, trying to figure out where it's been and where it might be headed next. They hit up Mackie's room, but it's unchanged. Messy and dazzling, but only with aftermath. 

And it's not the only thing that's been through Rime. If Dean's runes aren't much to go on, Sam has too much: There are traces everywhere. Most of it is old, dully luminous the way Sam figures 6.5 billion years of Creation probably should be. But that leaves centuries of distractions to tune out, too--like the Gros Ventre and their bax'aan, the Snake, the Sioux. The French, English. Mackie Sutherland. Them. Whoever the hell else ever wandered through Rime with magic on their heels. It’s not that Rime is special, or unusual in that way. When you have a hunk of rock that’s been around for a couple billion years, it tends to get dusty. Things pile up.

It's actually comforting to lurk the perimeter of the motel, which was once Sam's only landmark and is now the emptiest thing in all this nowhere. It might be an old piece of shit, but it's newer than the ground. It's easier to pick out the streaks he's looking for. Their serendipity is probably the weirdest thing that's ever happened to it.

Sam drums his knuckles on the steering wheel, fist clenched to make them white and bloodless, with the cold stealing away the rest. He can still see the embers in his veins, though. And Dean's making a prison out of a thermos, using runes Sam's never seen before. (The hoodoo thing I told you about, he says.)

They're sitting in the parking lot past sundown, in the dark, in the snow, and they are glowing. They are carving runes. So scratch that: They're the weirdest things that have ever happened to this motel.

"Why the fuck would anyone do this to a bathroom stall? This is hard," Dean grumbles, squinting at the flask. He checks his lines by turning it in the moonlight. "I mean, pens exist for a reason."

"Make sure all your rings are closed," says Sam.

"You," says Dean, and hands the flask to Sam. "My eyes are swimming. You can tell if they're actually doing anything, right? With your Magic Eyes."

"It sounds stupid when you call it that." But Sam takes the proffered flask and holds it up for inspection. It probably looks even stupider than a Magic Eye puzzle, since to anyone else it just looks like he's holding a cup in the dark.

"This one's a dud," says Sam.

"Which one?"

Dean's fingers trace Sam's, and his flashlight smears it with white light. Sam looks away from the brightness, eyes slit against its reflection off Dean's cheeks.

"Oh, whoops," he says, and takes the flask back. Flips his knife open and starts scratching one more line down the center of the defunct rune.

"Oh, whoops?" Sam parrots incredulously. "That's what we're going with?"

"Hey now, unless you bunkered with a couple hoodoo priests back in Cali, I'm thinking shut up. They didn't exactly send me home with a cheat sheet." 

But the rune flares to life under Dean's revision. Sam's audible sigh of relief is all the confirmation Dean needs.

"See anything out there?" he asks, as he squirms in his seat. "What about over there?"

"That's just a snow flurry," Sam answers. "And no, nothing. The newest signature's still by the door to Mackie's room. But I figure we sit tight out here, and we'll be the first to know if it makes any new moves."

"Fantastic."

Sam turns to Dean. In the dark it's hard to see his brother beneath the haze of magic clinging to him. Damned if he doesn't try, though.

"It might be more comfortable if we run the heat a little," he says.

"Nah. We've wasted enough gas playing hide and seek as it is. We're still planning to drive outta here, right?" Dean replies. But he bends to massage his knee, face shaded from moonlight, because Dean’s a professional liar and the first thing you learn to lie about is pain.

"Why does it matter if Mackie smokes?" Dean asks. To his credit, his voice wavers only a little. 

He shouldn't have waited so long; breakthrough pain is a bitch.

"I'm just trying to piece this all together," Sam replies. "Maybe he wanted the smokes; but he didn't, 'cause he quit. Maybe he wanted to get off, but maybe he didn't actually want to do it alone. Maybe he wanted all this shit--like, hard, fucked-up shit--and maybe the serendipity just wasn't built for that. Maybe what's been going on is all misprogrammed fate."

"So if we're fucked up enough, we can beat it at its own game? Because we might have home field advantage, in that case."

"No. I think it'll probably kill us. I'm just saying I think we all fucked it up before it fucked us."

"That's really inspiring, Sam."

"What's the deal with Walt and Roy?" Sam volleys back. He doesn't expect a real answer, but Dean's losing focus again, letting the pain wander him away. He needs a distraction from it.

"Worked a job with them once when you were at school. That's all."

"And Mackie?"

"I guess he must have been there, too. I remember his face, at least."

"You 'guess'?" Sam prompts.

Dean runs his hands along the edge of the seat, and Sam imagines those hands at his neck. Dean slumps against the window, cheek leaving a hot mark on the glass, and Sam imagines that pressure at his collarbone.

"Dean."

Dean spider-grips his knee again.

"You know how hunts go. Lots of bullshit. They're decent trackers, but they're huge fucking cowards. So I guess that means they're smart; I dunno."

"Why were you with them?"

Dean looks at Sam. Sam's looking down at his hands, veins like garish glow sticks, but he can feel Dean's eyes. And he knows Dean's answer.

"The point is, notice Mackie's dead and they're not? They'll save themselves and leave you to drown if that's what it takes to get out alive. And I'm not gonna let that happen to you. So they don't get to fucking touch this anymore."

"We're probably gonna be out here for a while," is all Sam says. "You might want to think about-- Do you still have any--"

"Way ahead of you." Dean mimes a dry swallow. "Now I just gotta stay awake. Know any party games?"

"Can I ask you another question?" says Sam.

"You're not holding up any fingers. There, I win. Fun game, Sam."

"It's just," starts Sam. "I feel like we don't necessarily know each other that well. It's been four years, man. Stuff's different."

"Please. We know what we do for a living; I'm not sure how much more there is to know."

"Don't."

"Okay. I know more about you than you're ever gonna tell anyone," Dean revises. "And you know more about me than I could ever tell you."

"See that's the thing, though," Sam says. "That just means we have a bunch of shit we can't talk about. That's like, 90% of our relationship. And the other ten is stuff we didn't mean to say! I don’t even know if you saw the new _Batman_ or not,” Sam points out. “You know, stuff like that.”

Dean snorts. “That the gold standard for intimacy these days? Chris Nolan?”

“Or like, your favorite beer,” Sam presses. “We’ve been to like five hundred--”

“Whatever’s cheapest,” says Dean.

“Or your favorite pie,” Sam continues.

“All of them!”

“Color?” 

“Don’t care.”

“Detergent?”

“My god, Sam--”

“Fine. Gas station?”

“I don’t see what--wait. Flying J.”

When Dean realizes that Sam’s waiting for an elaboration, he says, “There’s this one in Montana you always hit somehow, and it sells these weird little sheds and has a petting zoo and this rock that tells the weather. Showers ain’t half bad, either.”

“Wow,” Sam says finally, holding his mouth in a perfect O. He brings Dean's flashlight up to his face, sleepover ghoulish. “You must really like rocks.”

“Give me that,” Dean snaps, and yanks it back. “You’re just proving my own damn point.”

“I'm just trying to find something that's not covered in shit. For like, five minutes," Sam says. "So hit me with your best shot.”

Dean stays silent, like he's not about to condescend to the game. But Sam waits, and ultimately Dean allows, noncommittal, “I dunno, favorite ice cream?”

“Peppermint,” San answers promptly.

“Dude. When it comes in a tube, we call it _toothpaste_.” 

“Right, ‘cause your palette’s so refined; I remember those Pink Panther things.” 

Sam tried to describe them to Jess once--these legendary Pink Panther ice cream pops. They’re some of Sam’s sharpest childhood memories: The Pink Panther on a stick, cartoony and dripping down Dean’s chin. Its eyes made out of bubblegum--the kind that bled hot pink on your fingers when you plucked them out, candy shell cracked and grainy. Dean had loved the dumb things. 

“Dean?”

He’s stopped messing his knee, and seems to have resigned himself to moping instead. His breaths come in quiet, crystalline puffs.

“Dean,” Sam repeats. “Hello? Pink Panther? You being an idiot?”

“Right,” Dean says eventually. The puffs of his breath lose their regularity as he sucks in, holds it just a shade to long. “Right. I mean, you can’t ignore a two-fer--best of both worlds.”

Dean doesn’t remember them. Or if he does, it’s a dim and meaningless recollection. 

Sam sighs. What this probably comes down to is, Dean's his brother. Because Dean is his brother, Dean's always going to do whatever he can to keep Sam protected, distracted, and happy. He'll tell whatever lie it takes. And no one, not even Dean, likes ice cream as much as Dean pretends to. If Sam can't trust him about that back then, Sam can't trust him about this now. Any of this. Maybe that's reductive, or narcissistic, but God, _God_ , have you met Dean?

Sam turns to Dean then, because he's been uncharacteristically quiet. Sam shouldn't have even been able to have had this conversation with himself--not with Dean riding shotgun.

Dean’s settled so low in his seat his jacket’s started to turtle away from his neck, leather catching against leather and raising away from his shoulders until it looks like the mouth of a shell. 

“Dude,” says Sam.

Dean murmurs nonspecific acknowledgement.

“Dude,” Sam repeats, and punches Dean in the shoulder. “Don’t fall asleep on me. Hey, are you okay?”

Dean blinks rapidly, then narrows his eyes at the dashboard. 

“Yeah,” he says. 

Then his head dips forward and he jumps, shaking off the temptation of sleep. He blinks some more. “Goddamn it. These meds are bullshit.”

"Are you sure you're good for this?" Sam asks.

"As long as it actually happens."

"You look pretty wrecked. I don't want you to get hurt."

"Yeah, well. That ship's sailed. I'm either gonna pass out or puke, unless our serendipitous friend serendipities itself outside in the next ten minutes. So come on, serendipity."

"Dean," Sam says.

Dean lifts his head from his hand and turns to him. Sam thinks about what it would mean if he kissed Dean then--how much one act, one second, might change what they were. Then his hip hits the base of the steering wheel as he turns, Dean's stubble scratches his chin when he misses, and Dean's lips feel warm against his when he doesn't. He pulls back before Dean has the chance to answer the act.

Just one kiss. Just to see.

"What was that for?" Dean asks.

"Incentive," Sam replies. "Don't puke in the car."

One kiss, Sam thinks. It's just one kiss. It doesn't have to mean anything--just affection. Pure, simple, stupid.

Dean still looks like he's about to either pass out or puke.

But was that a good 'means less than he thought' or a bad one?

Fuck it. "Dean, we need to talk. For real."

"Okay. I like red more than blue. Apple pies are better than the custard ones. Can we go shoot something now?"

"Forget about all that," says Sam.

Because he won't be deterred. Not from something like this. He takes a deep breath. "When you kissed me was that--was that, you know, okay? I mean I know what you said about Jess, but I guess. I mean, I thought it was okay. Like, for me. So I need to know if you, uh."

Sam cuts off. 

What a mess.

"Did you follow all that?" Sam asks. 

God, he hates himself.

"Kind of low on content, Shakespeare," Dean answers.

But Sam doesn't think that's funny. Literally everything about that notwithstanding, sure, it's not much to follow. And Dean's hardly in a position to be deducting points for poor articulation.

"Dean," Sam insists.

"It's nothing I haven't done before," Dean clarifies, clarifying nothing. Case in point.

"I think I'd have noticed if you had," Sam replies.

Dean quirks an eyebrow. "And why would that be?"

Sam moves to gesture towards his body, his dick, but pulls up at the last moment, ends up gesturing vaguely at the steering wheel instead. 

Dean stares at him expectantly.

"You know what I mean," says Sam.

"Um, sure," says Dean. "Always, Sammy. I'm a mind reader."

Even the word makes Sam tense, though. _Always. Always and no matter what. Sammy. Whatever it takes._

"Let me put it this way," Dean says. "Chicks who just got dumped? Way into me. And I've never really had a problem with rebound sex, if that's what you're worried about."

"But all we did was kiss. We didn't--" Sam objects. But that's not what he meant to say. It isn't at all.

"Doesn't matter," Dean says. "You know what it felt like. Saying it was just a kiss doesn't change anything."

"So you're saying-- You felt like that was--"

"You _know_ what it felt like," Dean interjects. "I already said that. But if it makes you feel better, sex is just sex. Always is."

"That makes no sense." Dean can't insist it meant something in one breath and call it rebound in the next. Turn it into some meaningless hookup. Sex can't change everything and nothing, and it can't fucking feel like something for Dean but not mean anything. That's not how this works. Unless, of course, it's the only way it does.

"Do you miss her?" Dean says. It's not a question, and he isn’t wrong.

"But I still-- That doesn't--"

There's a ferocious banging on Sam's side of the Impala, and Sam grazes the top of his head on the roof of the Impala, he startles so intensely. Dean swears, and Sam makes an instinctive grab for the flask. But there's no shattering of glass, just more banging. Once Sam's ears stop running with the rush of his own blood he realizes there's also shouting.

"It's the motel guy," Dean hisses, before Sam can turn around. "Motherfucking--"

Motel Guy won't stop banging. But from Dean's expression Sam gathers he doesn't look like he's being suffocated, or otherwise terrorized. He's just mad.

"It's a good thing it's him and not the serendipity. It'd be fucking stupid if it nailed us on our own stakeout because we were only _talking_ about fucking--"

Maybe that's what prompts him. Maybe Sam wants to normalize this under the mantle of the family business. Maybe he wants to force the meaning from it. Turn it into a tactic, a response to duress. Maybe he wants to fuck Dean silly.

Maybe, as always, Sam just wants a clear path forward.

Whatever it is, there's this drunk-warped flash of motel guy turning away from him and Dean outside that bar, averting his eyes, leaving them be. And they're in the car, out in the dark, and they just got caught, and some teenage part of Sam's just certain--this is what he's got to do. 

He all but launches himself at Dean's face, grabs his lapel, and drags him in.


	11. Chapter 11

Sam kisses Dean like it's the only thing he's ever wanted in this world. 

_Look away, Motel Guy,_ he thinks. _Leave us alone. Leave us to this, whatever it is. Let us do this alone. Remember last time? You left us alone._

And for all the things Dean's not, he's a professional-grade kisser. Sam's not sure why this surprises him--especially not now, not after all this; but for a moment Sam forgets the impetus, forgets Motel Guy, forgets the cold, forgets any jag they've ever hit or break they've never mended. 

It's never just one kiss. It hasn't been in a long time. 

Sam gives himself.

Dean's a little sloppy, on-drugs sloppy, but that doesn't stop him from grabbing Sam's wrist, holding tight. With his other hand, he swipes the tickle of Sam's bangs away from his cheek. Sam pushes past Dean's compliant tongue and he feels a chill shoot up his spine. His heart beats in his wrist where Dean grabbed it.

But ultimately, like the dull pounding of waves, or of a migraine, a torrential white noise breaks though to Sam's brain. Senses divert, attention scatters outward. Pleasure dissipates. 

Motel Guy is still shouting: They are loitering, this is funny business, what are they spying on, no loitering. NO LOITERING!!! Apparently romantic rendezvous wasn't a good enough excuse to be sitting in his parking lot, staring at his building. 

He's just angrier now, and he has a gun. Sam catches it at the periphery of his vision, without turning around. So he separates from Dean, air cold against his now-wet lips, and slowly raises his hands.

And the kicker:

"Okay, what was that one for?" Dean asks, a little breathlessly but not anything that suggests transcendence, or even real want. It's like he's just asking about the weather.

"If you need to ask, then why did you kiss back?!" Sam hisses.

"Was I fucking not supposed to?" Dean volleys, as he makes a show of raising his hands and exiting the vehicle, at the behest of Motel Guy.

Reflex. Sam kissed Dean and then Dean kissed back, because what are you supposed to do? Dean's kiss was thoughtless in the way that habits are, not swept up in emotion over mind games, but absent of them entirely. That's what had Sam had wanted. 

It's not what Sam had wanted.

Dean's zero leaves Sam cold.

It hadn't felt that way in the moment. It hadn't felt like some neuromuscular blip, Dean's neck rippling beneath Sam's fingers and his tongue flashing in. But maybe that's what professional-grade means.

For example, Dean doesn't give a shit about Motel Guy's bottom line, but right now it sure sounds like he does. Because Dean is a professional, and Motel Guy's the one with the rifle. No, they hadn't been thinking about the other guests, Dean allows. 

(All… none of them, Sam thinks testily. Well, there had been Mackie. And Walt and Roy, if they ever left that bar that one night.) 

Dean's still talking. Something about how sure, taking all those pastries without thinking about anyone else that might need them; that's just depraved. Obviously you're not a Hilton; that probably set you back. Look, let us make that up to you, Dean suggests.

Professional or not, it all sounds morbidly sarcastic to Sam, like maybe Dean wants to be blown away in a parking lot. But it must not play that way to strangers, because Motel Guy's finger hasn't leapt to the trigger yet. Sam raises his hands higher and tries to smile obsequiously.

"And my Ethernet cord," Motel Guy reminds them. "I saw what you did to it, before chucking it out, you vandals."

Sam's throat tightens. "Wow," Sam exclaims, which is an excuse to gulp in air. "Nothing gets past you, does it?"

"Sharp tack," Dean agrees. "I mean, you saw him whiz that poker game."

Motel Guy knows everything that goes on in his hotel, he says. Don't think he doesn't. 

Dean says he'd never dream of it.

As it turns out, and as Motel Guy explains, Motel Guy served in the National Guard--just long enough to give Dean a higher estimation of his aim, but not long enough for their parting to have been on amicable terms. Which is exactly what Sam wanted to hear, really, in the dark in a parking lot in the middle of nowhere. And they obviously can't shoot him back, which would be the easiest escape route. So here they are.

"Come any closer, and I shoot," Motel Guy announces shrilly.

Sam casts a glance at Dean. It's hard to tell in the dark, but Dean looks significantly less interested in Motel Guy's life story now that it's clear all the buddy-listening in the world won't get them close enough to disarm him.

"Look, man, it's late. You've clearly had a long day. Can't you just--I dunno, put the gun away and add some extra charges to our bill or something?" Sam tries. "I feel like that's a pretty... normal way to resolve stuff like this."

"I don't trust you!" shouts Motel Guy. "When you're all the way out here like this, you can't take stupid chances. Do you know how long it'd take the cops to get here? How long it took the ambulance to get here? Besides, I never trust guys who pay in cash. If you don't got a name, a billing address, or a credit score, why should I trust you? Like as not you'll just skip town in the morning anyway. Maybe I should shoot your tires out, instead of you."

Dean chuckles nervously. "Let's not escalate, now."

"Shut up. I know the kind of people roll through here; don't think I don't. People like you--like that dead guy--"

"Our money's in the room," Sam blurts out. He hates that this is their life, rising to every snag in the plan and run in the fabric like it's the only thing that matters, or the only thing that's ever happened. Because yes, fantastic, it's 1AM and it's time to talk down their twitchy motel host--obviously. It doesn't matter what they were just doing to each other. It doesn't matter what Sam dreams, or who hasn't eaten, or who's hurt, or what happened last week, who was supposed to be dead in a month. Who died. None of that has any chance to matter. 

What matters is they ate too many pastries, and this is what that comes to. Obviously.

Motel Guy orders a march toward their room, rifle still trained on the both of them--swiveling between them worrisomely--and Sam hates everything about that. And if one thing's clear, it's that Motel Guy is deathly afraid of them, hence the rifle. Hence the unsettling jumpiness, and the distrust.

Maybe he's afraid of them because of all those things that aren't allowed to matter. They look dangerous because four days ago, they showed up sopping and covered in mud. Because of the gouges beneath their eyes, dark bruising because no one's slept because Jess, because Dean, because reapers, because they're stuffed to the gills with fodder for generic nightmares. Because hunting. Because pain. There's that gleam of hungry desperation in their eyes, which only grows and which can't lead good places. Because Sam wrenched open a monster's throat and bathed in its blood. And even if no one else can see it, Sam can, and he acts like that's what happened last week. Because there's something in his own blood, this Sam now knows for sure, and he fucking acts like it, because he's terrified, and he can't help it. 

Motel Guy's afraid of them because they look criminal. Well. They are. And everything that's led them here, that could possibly explain what they are and who they want (who they are; what they want, Sam corrects) is a sentence, not an exoneration. But for all Sam's pained indignation, Motel Guy has a point. He's wrong, he's so wrong--but he's not, is he?

Sam's beginning to sense a theme.

Motel Guy satellites a clean arc around them, using the Impala as cover, and they start marching. Because you don't mess with the armed and anxious unless you have a clear and foolproof open. Problem is, now they have to make one--and their luck this week hasn't quite been up to snuff.

"Bang-up hostage negotiation skills, Sam," Dean snaps under his breath.

"Right, 'cause your performance was fucking scintillating," Sam snaps back. 

Here and now, he thinks. Here and now.

Dean pants. "My question is, how the hell did he find the Ethernet cord, but not the armadillo? Like, is that a card we can play?"

"The possum, you mean."

"Whoa, fuck--" And Dean goes down. Not at all cleanly--it's more of a staggering, shale-like collapse, some morbid combination of Dean hedging pain and his knee proving wholly unable to shoulder its burdens, even if Dean wanted it to. 

Sam thinks frayed muscles and torn tendons and small, needling splintered bones. Dean thinks--or this is what he says, anyway; maybe he's not thinking anything at all--'ahhhgh' as it all hits ice and pavement and his palms skid across dark wet asphalt. Motel Guy say, "Don't try any funny business--just step the fuck away from him and keep your hands where I can see them!"

"He's hurt, I'm just trying to--"

"Step the fuck away," intones Motel Guy, and he cocks the gun.

For the love of-- They were _pastries_ , Sam objects mentally. But when he turns around he shuts up quick, and all but jumps away from Dean.

There on the nose of the rifle sits the serendipity.

It's nothing much. Just a rounder, brighter version of the heat trails it's left behind. But it's sitting on Motel Guy's gun and Sam can only imagine what Motel Guy might be wishing for. How any gun might mean to give it to him.

"Dean," Sam whispers through his teeth. But Dean doesn't hear him; he's still trying to get a handle on himself.

Sam has the flask in his jacket pocket. Rifle notwithstanding, Sam realizes that he has no idea how they're supposed to shove the thing inside it.

Is serendipity corporeal?

It just looks like light. Light in frosty motes, brightest against the snow shaking from above.

"Dean," Sam tries again.

They just need to get Motel Guy his money. Make him happy, get him inside before he and Dean figure out what to do with this thing. They're nearly to their stairwell; they need to get Motel Guy his money.

Except they don't have his money, Sam remembers. Because that was a lie, and they don't actually have any money at all.

"I'm waiting," Motel Guy reminds him. He also reminds him not to try any funny business, though it's a little late for that.

"Can I help my brother up? He's hurt," Sam asks. _Come on, Dean. It's on the gun. It's on the gun. Read my mind._

"I don't believe you," gulps Motel Guy. "You just want me to pity you. But I know that trick."

It takes everything Sam has not to split with hysterical laughter. They don't need to trick anyone into finding them pitiable; they just are. It's been that kind of week.

"Oh, you got me!" Dean confesses loudly, his voice shaky. "Smart man--can't get--anything past you." 

Dean raises his hands in the air again. He drops one immediately to stabilize himself and groans, deep at the back of his throat, as he struggles to stand on his own. He sucks in air sharply, and as he turns to face Motel Guy, he locks eyes with Sam. 

Where is it? he mouths. He takes one look at Sam and he knows that's where Sam's focus is--why he hasn't made a move yet.

Sam turns back to the barrel of the gun, and Dean follows his gaze.

"You know where the wallet is, right Sam?" Dean says. "The nice brown one. In the duffel. How 'bout you run and get that so our friend here can go home and get some shut-eye?"

Sam has no idea what Dean's talking about. But not getting shot seems contingent on playing along, so he plays along.

"Sammy's gonna go get your money, and we'll just chill out here, okay?" Dean offers.

This was all so backwards. Sam's the only one who can see the serendipity; he should be the one keeping an eye on things down here. And Dean's the only one who has any idea what Dean's talking about--Sam's really not sure what he's supposed to do once he gets up to the room. Convince Motel Guy that bartering is all the rage? But Dean can't climb these stairs, and he's not the one with a gun on him. Sam starts climbing.

He'd take them two, three at a time if he could, but the handrail is too cold to touch and the stairs are too icy to underestimate, so his ascent feels agonizingly slow. He's never felt so scrutinized while climbing a flight of stairs. 

He's also never been on a hunt where the look of his stair-climbing was the determining factor. What was this, hunters' dressage?

What if Motel Guy decided he didn't like Sam's footing, and the serendipity obliged to change it for him? Apparently it's on his team now, not Sam's. And if Sam's hopes, wishes, and dreams are complicated, right now Motel Guy's aren't: Remove the threat.

Just climb, Sam tells himself. _No funny business._

Then Motel Guy changes his mind. 

He says, "No, this won't fly. I need him where I can see him. He needs to come down right now!" 

And Sam does fly. One moment he's climbing, and the next he's being hurled from the stairs. It's that fucking easy, instant, irreversible. 

Dean only gets halfway through asking Motel Guy to reconsider before he's shouting Sam's name, in one long, aching syllable.

It's all Sam can hear, which couples well with all he can see--just a bright green-yellow light all around him as he sails up and over. Sam's pretty sure fate's not supposed to actively throw you off of staircases.

But then, he's Sam Winchester.

Sam manages to grab hold of something as he falls, and almost instantly regrets it. Handrail, Sam thinks. Because of course--that's what they're there for. 

But this one's cold, and Sam feels his skin suction to it, the sweat of his palms binding with the icy rail like they were made for each other. It feels hot.

Below him, Sam hears the raucous ping of a bullet ricocheting from metal, casing tinkling against ice, and a barrage of muted, meaty human sounds, though blessedly none of them sound like being shot. Some of them are Dean wrestling a rifle from someone else's hands and dropping all its ammo out the side. Most of the sounds are Motel Guy shouting about Sam. He tells Sam not to fall. But, like most things, it's a bit late for that.

There's a thud, and Motel Guy goes quiet. (There's that clear and foolproof open they were waiting for, at least.) 

Sam's pretty sure the best thing he could possibly do for himself in this moment is fall. He'd really like to keep his hands, and frostbite's not conducive to that.

Besides, how far up could he possibly be? The building's only two stories. If he plays his cards right, the fall's not gonna kill him.

Of course, if he breaks his legs then they're that much more fucked than they already are, what with Dean. They can't pay for any of that. They can't even pay this guy for his flat, disgusting pastries.

But he's the one with the flask, and he's the only one who can see the stupid thing, and he needs to get down there. So Sam bids his skin farewell and swings as hard as he can, adds momentum to his body weight and aims for the ground. He thinks of all the glass outside that bar (and the fried bugs, and Dean's arms around him, and Dean's arms around him) and hopes there's nothing sharp down there.

Dean's shouting his name again, a familiar refrain that resounds unhelpfully like SAM, SAM NO, SAM, YOU MOTHERFUCKER, NO but Sam's palms give happily.

He drops like a stone.

Then he's on his back, he's just gasping--or failing to gasp--like a surprised goldfish because he can't move, he can't breathe, and shattering his C2 had never been a part of the plan, if that's what just happened. Dean's still shouting his name.

He wants Dean beside him and Dean's not there, and then he's still not there, and it's the worst feeling in the world.

Dean's not there.

Then he is. He crashes to the ground and then onto Sam again. Apparently, it hurts. His hand's on Sam's chest when Sam's body remembers what his diaphragm is for, and it fills, and the breath torn from him ekes its way back in.

He's okay. He's okay.

Dean's been babbling this whole time, but Sam doesn't know what he's saying and doesn't care what he's saying. Dean pulls him up and Sam thinks, This is a weird fucking moment for another kiss.

But Dean's just checking the back of his head for blood, which there's quite a bit of, everywhere. It's just his hands, though, raw to the world and spewing bright, dazzling magical blood.

He's mortified until he remembers he's the only one who can see that part. Then it just hurts; and he's so shocked he's not even sure if it does that. But it should.

"Where is it?" Dean spits. It seems like maybe that's not the first time he's asked. Sam's not sure where it is. He blinks, and everything streams together in long and multiple exposure.

"Sammy, you gotta work with me here, you gotta-- Where is--"

"Oh, god."

Sam's voice pitches considerably higher than he thought possible.

"Oh god."

"Sammy--" Dean warns. A generally useless warning.

Sam knows where the serendipity is, all right. It's on his shredded hands, like some kind of queer, vampiric, phosphorescent butterfly. Sam feels a nauseating tickle against his nerves as small clots of red trickle along its edges--his blood staining the serendipity's horizons ugly and mottled as his red and its green mix.

"Righthereit'srighthere it's right here," Sam stammers. "It's right here it's in my hands I think it's trying to eat me."

"It's _what_?!"

 _It's trying to drink me, oh god it's drinking me,_ is the only clarification Sam can think of, so he keeps his words in his throat and just gapes silently. Tries not to budge a single muscle, a capillary, a cell of skin.

"It'srighthereit'srighthereit'srighthere how do we put it-- How do we put it in the-- the thing--"

"I have no idea," Dean admits. He's staring at Sam's hands, which means he's staring at nothing. 

"It's eating me, it's eating me, it's eating me--" 

Then Sam's mind suggests something else.

_It's trying to purify me._

"Sam, don't move," Dean orders. "God, I feel like a fucking mime," and grabs haphazardly at the air in front of him. His fingers close around nothing, and disappear within the light of the serendipity.

"Get out of there, you'll feel it, you'll feel what's in that thing and what's in my blood and you'll know get out of there it's trying to help--"

"Shut up, Sam--I'm trying to fucking--"

Dean pulls at the serendipity until it's a long thin stream and funnels it into the flask. Funnels, funnels, funnels. And then it's gone.

It's gone.

"Holy shit," Dean rasps. He's not looking at the flask but at Sam, and in Sam he can tell that it's done, it's gone, it's over. It's quick, unceremonious, and a little embarrassing.

Okay, it's a lot embarrassing. This whole case hasn't exactly been the stuff of ballads and war stories to write home about. Sam doesn't feel victorious. He does not feel relieved.

But because it bears repeating, Dean says, "Holy shit."


	12. Chapter 12

Sam's never felt worse. No nightmare, no hangover--just a dream. Jess was there. When he wakes, he's reminded she's not. It doesn't even matter it's been six months, almost seven. It has nothing to do with anything he did yesterday. It makes no sense. But suddenly she's gone all over again, more gone than she has ever been before, and it hurts like absolute hell.

Sam doesn't think these cloudbursts will ever go away. Not really. Loss doesn't care if it makes sense or not. He tries to roll onto his back, take a deep breath (and fuck, everything hurts). His motion is stopped by a bulk behind him. It's calming for a half-second, Dean's back warm and sturdy against his, but then Dean starts awake, chokes on his own spittle, and too quickly, becomes a fluster of motion. There have been easier Sunday mornings.

Also, it's only Saturday. And they're not supposed to be here.

"Fuck, fuck--" Dean chants, with the relative incoherence of someone who's just woken from sleep they'd hadn't meant to fall into. "Move it, Sam, we gotta go--"

They're in Mackie's room--conveniently downstairs--his shit still strewn about. By the sound of Dean's suddenly more impassioned fuckfuckFUCKs, there's also still pins on the floor. 

Blessedly, the more awake Sam gets the less Jess hurts. But the more awake Sam gets, the more his body remembers that everything else does. 

His raw hands. Every muscle fiber. The blurry, prismatic dance of magical signatures across his vision. Now the particle trails seem warped and imprecise, as though they've been melting from their signifiers all night. He can barely see. So he stares straight ahead, straight up, and doesn't think about fire.

"We can't go anywhere. No gas in the tank," Sam says dully, without tearing his eyes from the ceiling.

"I seriously thought he was gonna chase us all the way across state lines, man." Dean laughs a little. 

Sam remembers this hazily--trapping the serendipity and afterward, Motel Guy crying bloody, bloodcurdling murder until they promised they'd get the hell out of his life. They'd waited two hours on a frontage road before sneaking back.

"Believe me, if I thought there was a green zone out there we coulda made it to, I would've gone for it. But apparently, Motel Guy's got the only digs in Rime. And for the love of God, Sam, get your pretty ass _up_ \--"

By the way, Jess is still gone.

"I can't believe we didn't at least get a free night out of this," Sam grumbles as he folds his head toward his knees. 

Jess is gone. 

It doesn't make sense to bring her up now, even if it might explain to Dean what Sam's fucking problem is. It never does. It takes everything Sam has to wake up and swallow her.

Not that Dean's one to talk, where speedy getaways are concerned--he's still seated, too. Slowly weighing the pros and cons of further movement. He's hurting. No miracle cures on Dean's front either, then. No functional, actual serendipities. No more meds.

Sam can hear it in Dean's voice when he answers, "Come on, when have we ever been thanked?"

"Almost every time, actually," Sam points out. "Even Becky thanked us, and we left a dead shapeshifter on her coffee table."

"Layla didn't," says Dean. 

When Sam doesn't reply, just claws his fingers deeper into the bedspread, into his knees, Dean asks, "Are you okay?"

"Spell's wearing off," Sam mumbles. "Feels like a migraine. Or everything looks like a migraine, anyway."

He keeps his eyes screwed shut.

(Don't think about Layla, whose name Sam had forgotten and now cannot erase. Don't think about Jess. Don't think about any of that.)

"Guess I'm driving, then," says Dean.

"You good for that?"

Dean winces. "Pretty sure Motel Guy wasn't bluffing when he said he'd shoot us if he saw us again. So yeah, I guess I'm good; let's not get our asses capped. Man's gotta defend his pastries after all; plus, he's already mad about the Internet. And, I dunno, loitering. Funny business. Though I guess he did nearly kill _you_ , so I don't know if that really--"

"He was trying to save us from being indigent low-lifes or whatever. Scare us into having good moral character," says Sam, mostly to slow Dean down. All the chatter's for his benefit, Sam's pretty sure--at least in part. It's Dean's usual strange combination of unhelpful courtesy and adrenaline jabber. Sam continues, "All right, someone has to say it: Motel Guy's is fucking weird. But it's the serendipity that tried to kill me."

Dean shakes his head. "Dude, never cop to being offed by an invisible nightlight."

"And death by Motel Guy is somehow better?"

Dean mutters "Fuck mornings" as he takes a stiff, experimental step, then replies, "Death by conniving businessman who withholds rations from the prisoners of his snow palace and wants to shoot them. But hey--when in Rime..."

Sam snorts into his chest, forehead still braced on his knees. They don't even know Motel Guy's name.

"Sam, up and at 'em," Dean repeats. "I'm serious, we gotta go."

"Why are you so scared of him?" Sam yawns. "Aren't you supposed to like, work your charms and wiles in these situations?"

"As of last night, I'm pretty sure he knows he's not my type. Thanks for that," Dean says. 

"Sam, look at me." 

Sam looks, and Dean's lips meet his. The mattress craters beneath him and suddenly Dean's whole body falls against Sam's. Dean grabs Sam's shoulder to stabilize himself, but holds the kiss. His tongue skates along the rim of Sam's lower lip.

Sam kisses back. 

They match each other's breaths, lips tickling between kisses, until finally Dean pushes off from Sam's shoulder and up from the bed.

When Sam opens his eyes, everything's haloed and wavering like an old TV, with its tubes all out of sorts. The brightness of the magic dusting everything makes his eyes water.

It's covering Dean like blood, of course, clots in his hair and dripping from his hands. Humming in his heart, and washing the air before him with every breath. It splatters the room, lingers in the light fixtures. Dances along the windowsill like ant poison.

It's even leaking through the bandages on his hands, the thin scabs beneath the gauze. His veins glow with it.

Sam wipes his mouth aggressively.

"Seriously?" says Dean, brows arched.

"You haven't brushed yet," says Sam.

"Seriously," says Dean, and throws his hands up.

Dean makes a show of planning to leave Sam behind, while Sam tries to work out the color of him--or the magic in him, in any case. There's so much of it crossfading against itself it's mostly a murky gray--white for the reaper who brought Dean back to life, puffing in and out of his chest. Every other color for every other evil thing they've ever touched. Sam strains to see the chlorine yellow of the serendipity, in hopes he'll be able to see what marks it's made, but it's everywhere, and the delineations are too hard to make out. His vision's going black and splotchy.

Sam tries to focus on the fingers he'd used to wipe his lips. His heart tingles with the sensation of Dean's proximity and Sam begs himself to ignore it. 

Because there's a chance, isn't there? 

And because he wouldn't be Sam Winchester without this, he thinks up one more terrible thing before they leave Rime. One possibility he hadn't yet considered: There's a chance that he and Dean, the way they are right now, are just misprogrammed fate. If that's what they're calling it. 

Maybe what they have is just the serendipity, spitting things out in faulty translation. Sam wanted Dean, so he got him. 

Sam thinks of Dean's lips against his, their backs against each other, Dean's hands in his hair, arms around him, and maybe that's all it was.

Or maybe it's a grief thing. Or a neurosis thing. Maybe it's not real. Not really what they're meant to be. Maybe Dean's just lying to him. That kiss just now should belie that, but Dean's too smart for his own good; maybe he's figured out what that kind of thing does to Sam, what it can make Sam do for Dean. Maybe it's a tool.

Sam's thought about this on his end, too. Maybe this is just a tipping point--because if this last week has been a testament to anything, it's that they can't just say "I'm on a roadtrip with my brother" anymore. They can't keep saying, "because we're family; because you're my brother" and just leave it at that. It leaves too much to default. Allows too many escapes where there need to be incursions, confessions, confidences. Maybe Sam's lips against Dean's are just a way of forcing those conversations out of them. 

Maybe this is all just manipulative as shit; or maybe it's professional. It's in exchange for services.

Maybe it's as innocent as just wanting Dean to touch him like that.

Sam would like that, it it were.

"Sam, I'm fucking lapping you. I haven't been the one telling you to get up since you were like, seven. This is pathetic."

By this point, Dean's backed against the door, holding it wide open so the wind sweeps in. Snow flurries meet a quick, wet demise against him.

Sam imagines himself at seven and Dean at twelve and wants to gag. But he also wants his dick in Dean's hands, their ankles locked, and a few other things he hasn't thought about since midterm study breaks with Jess last spring. But that's all a few steps more than the kisses Dean's offered so far.

"Dean, we're brothers," Sam blurts out.

Dean looks away, out toward the parking lot, his eyes squinted against oncoming snow.

"I don't see that changing anytime soon," Dean says.

Sam shrugs his jacket on completely and nestles deep into its collar as he zips its front. There's a tender pressure at his back as Dean guides him out the door. A click as it closes, finally, behind them. The noise hurts, for some reason.

Sam tries to speak over it, drown it out, even though the sound is gone and the act is already done. "So what are we even doing?" he asks. "What are we gonna--"

"We're gonna let some slack into the 'find Dad' thing, for one," Dean answers immediately. Apparently he's been thinking about this. "Not like he wants to be found, anyway. And just until we figure out what-- until we--"

"Until we what?"

The their car doors slam in sync as Sam and Dean tip inside.

"Sam." Dean sucks in cold air and it blows out with the white of both ice and magic. Sam shudders. "Don't torture yourself. I'm begging you. Please."

Sam watches pained tears spark in Dean's eyes as he taps the acceleration. Dean ignores them, the Impala rolls backward, but when they shift to drive and push in earnest, the sound Dean makes is unearthly. 

Speaking of torture.

So Sam says, "But you realize how fucked that'd be, right? If we kept--and it was all just--"

"Please," Dean repeats.

"Everything's already so fucked up. I mean, Dad, and Jess. And the demon, and now I'm having visions--and then reapers, and hell, even the fucking health insurance. I just, I can't do that to you, Dean. I can't." _And there's magic in my blood; dark magic. And I can't take you down with me._

Dean sighs. "What. What are you doing, Sam? What are you supposedly doing?"

"I don't want to hurt you," says Sam.

"You're not."

"But what if it's just some weird serendipity sex pollen thing?"

"Dude. First dolphins, now flowers? Mixed signals, man. Mixed fucking--"

"Can you shut the fuck up for a second and listen to me?"

The Impala fishtails a little on the icy driveway, but she's steady on the road and a half-second later, they're sidled up to one of the gas pumps.

Dean takes a moment to catch his breath, hissing a pained staccato through his teeth. It's going to be a long drive.

"Just answer me one question, Sam. Then I'll listen to you from here clear to--" Dean pauses. "Oh, this is the last landmark for hundreds of miles. So I guess I'll listen to you from here to, uh, right about here."

"I'm fucking serious."

"Me too," Dean replies, in a tone that suggests that yes, he's pretty damn serious. 

He says, "Sam, do you want this?"

Sam's not sure. 

"Yes," Sam says finally.

And Dean says, "So why wouldn't I?"

Sam swallows. "Because you're not always that great at knowing the difference. Between what you want and what you--don't actually want. Or what you only think you should want," he says.

Dean frowns. "I know how to say no to you."

"That's not what I meant. I'm just saying that sometimes--"

"You know what I want right now, Sam? 8 gallons and one of those meat stick things." 

Dean digs a wallet--not his--from his jacket pocket and flips it into Sam's lap. 

"What? And where--"

"You know--one of those meat stick things. They're like yea long, weirdly red, giant bog cow on the package, always near the register. Oh--right. That's Roy's," Dean explains belatedly, poking at the wallet. It presses against Sam's crotch.

"You stole Roy's wallet? How hasn't he noticed yet?"

Dean shrugs. "He's an idiot. Though I'm sure he'll get us back someday." Then he adds, “I figure that'll get us a couple hundred miles and some real food. We hock that stupid video camera and we can probably swing--something vaguely medical. Maybe.” 

Sam fingers their catch. It's a nice wallet, and well worth stealing. Its contents are a little tailwind, which will keep their crash and burn away for a few more days. (Plane's still burning, emergency measures still in place--but that, they probably don't ever escape.)

It's not about the money, though. It's not even petty revenge.

It _should_ be about the money, fucking frankly. Sam's probably never going to really know what happened between Dean and Walt and Roy and Mackie; he'd be foolish to guess. But maybe it should be about revenge, too.

It's not, though. Sam knows, because if Dean's still anything like the person he was the last time Sam knew him, for every cause he takes up and every plan he makes, there's a hundred things he draws outside the lines. No rhyme, no reason; no fate, nor fatalism. Just impulse. Uncalculated inspiration.

A thousand fires could burn a thousand ceilings, and Sam could see an entire fucking rainbow in his blood, or on Dean's breath, or striating the muscles of his heart. A thousand fractured serendipities. But if it's him and Dean against it all, they won't be hemmed in by fate. They can't be.

So Dean will steal wallets because he can and Sam will throw pastries and maybe they'll both fall deeply and wholly into some other kind of love. Because fuck it, they're not someone else's story, they don't have to play by destiny, and if they want to fall in love they can fall in love. It's just between them. They can take it and run.

The epiphany leaves Sam frenzied and breathless, but really, he should know better. You can't drive off into the sunset at 5AM. And their pain is enough to sober just about any fantasy.

"I liked it," is all Dean tells him, which is about a gram off neutral zero. It's not exactly a sweeping declaration of love. 

But if they're going to have any chance in hell, Sam might need to be okay with that. And of course, given how Dean's sweeping declarations make Sam feel, maybe Dean's lowball declarations are actually a good thing.

( _I'm never going to let that happen to you I'll do whatever it takes Always and forever Anything it takes Sammy I'm gonna keep you safe_ )

"Sam, I liked it, okay? I'm just not sure--"

"Sure of what?"

Dean's face contorts, as though he can only do so many things at once--juggle the conversation with Sam, or the one with his knee. And it's like they're right back where they started, with Dean falling apart and Sam afraid to hurt him.

"I don't want you to psych yourself into my arms because I'm the least dead thing you could find. There--is that honest enough for you?" Dean snaps.

Sam doesn't take the bait. "That sounds like my problem, not yours."

Dean tries again. "I'm just saying--there's a lot on the table. You're all over the place right now, and God knows I'm a piece of work. And I don't-- This might not be the time to add in another deck of cards."

They're in the middle of a load of shit; that much they agree on. But Sam's jumped way past that.

"Do you have any idea how relationships work?" Sam asks. "Like, do you think Jess and I hooked up because we had all our ducks in a row and everything was great?"

"Okay, seriously. What were you gonna do with those ducks?" Dean asks.

"Is that what you think, Dean?" Sam repeats, ignoring him. "Have you ever been in a relationship before?"

"I have a no-strings-attached policy."

"Okay, well, me and you have strings whether we fuck or not."

"So now you want me to say yes? I thought you were all flipped out because maybe the serendipity love doctored us."

"It doesn't matter what I _want_ you to say. That's my whole point."

"So as long as I'm down with this, you're cool with a fairy possibly pimping you out."

Sam flip-flops Roy's wallet between his hands. He decides, "Wishes are simple. Whatever you and I are, we're not that."

All it takes is one glance at Dean, fleeting eye contact, and that's twenty-two years; and life and death and life again; and the dust monsters, old and new; freight-rate baggage and thirteen different fights, ninety paranoias, seven hundred traumas. It's bad ice cream and worse baked goods and shitty jokes and a lot of blood. What he and Dean have isn't exactly wish material. You don't choose this kind of thing--not even if you're confused or wishing badly. No one chooses this. But it's what they've got, and it's what Sam never wants to lose. Of this much, Sam's absolutely certain.

Does he want it? might be a different question. He doesn't want to lose it. 

He wants to want it.

"Let's see how far we get, then," Dean says finally. 

It's difficult to tell if 'far' should be measured in miles or inches, in intimacies or just plain survival. 

As if on cue, Dean's phone rings. At first Sam assumes it must be Roy, finally mourning his missing property. But from the look on Dean's face it's clearly not; it's a conflagration of yearning and dismay.

John, Sam thinks. Dad. Dean's head on his shoulder and his hands at Sam's waist--and Dad.

Whatever Sam's told himself about his father's approval, or how much he does not want it and does not care, it all folds like a house of cards. His lips curl against the hot memory of Dean's tongue and he nearly pisses himself. Because if John Winchester can track a demon, there's no way he won't find out about this. 

Maybe he already knows.

"Don't give me that look," says Dean, when he finishes his phone call. Sam missed the entire thing.

His heart's still racing, his stricken expression a warped rictus.

"Sam, I promise--we'll hit up a clinic on the way. You can march my ass through the doors yourself." 

Sam's still thinking JOHN JOHN JOHN and Dean's tongue in his mouth.

"And, ah. Let me know when you're good to drive. Please."

JOHN JOHN JOHN and Sam's hands on Dean's ass.

Dean waves a hand in front of Sam's face. "Uh, hello?"

Sam blinks. "What, uh, what did he--"

"She," Dean corrects, and Sam's brow furrows.

"But Dad--"

"Trust me, if Dad's anywhere, it ain't anywhere near her."

"So where are we going, then?" Sam asks dazedly. He only just processes the fact that Dean hadn't been on the phone with John; he'd been so _sure_. He can hear the judgment raining down. Asking, as always, why everything Sam wants comes with such a high damn price tag. Asking why, even after Jess, Sam's still ready to take everyone down with him.

"Down South," Dean answers. "It's time to visit an old friend, I guess."

He looks at Sam kind of funny then. 

He adds, "Her name is Cassie."

If Dean thinks he's being generous by giving Sam that, Sam's not sure why. Her name means as little to him as Walt, Roy, Mackie, or Sara.

"Cassie. Sure. Cool," says Sam.

"Not really," says Dean. He doesn't meet Sam's eyes that time. 

Sam lets the name ring in his head. _Cassie._

"And Sam--" Dean starts again. Then he changes his mind. Sam doesn't bother fighting it.

Sam can see it in Dean's shoulders, the line of his jaw and the cant of his knees. He's loose and easy; it's the way other people look when it's time to say I love you, or time to feel it. It's what other people look like when their guard is down and their heart is out. When they feel safe.

But Dean's guard's not down.

Dean pats the wallet atop Sam's crotch, points outside, and says, "Pump 3."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dedicated to BV, 1961-2016.
> 
> If you haven't already, please check out **sketchydean** 's [gorgeous artwork](http://sketchydean.tumblr.com/post/152781279451/every-rhyme-without-reason-wincest-big-bang-2016), which combines Winchester grit with fantastical fae signatures so gorgeously well, and is just all around beautiful in its composition, palette, and level of detail. <33333333


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